


Land of "Why are there all these demons in my city" and "Gog why do I have all these hunters trying to kill me I don't deserve this"

by ComplimentaryCuller



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Demonstuck, Fight Scenes, M/M, Prospit demons, derse hunters, minor (might get bigger idk) rosemary, minor tavris (pale), minor vrisrezi (flush), slow burn hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2018-11-15 10:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 34,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11229411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComplimentaryCuller/pseuds/ComplimentaryCuller
Summary: Why couldn't these hunters give Karkat and his hive a break? Ah, yes, because nice things are for other people. How could he forget.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> LoWatatdimcaGwdihathttkmiddt  
> Beautiful.  
> (Lo-wa-ta-tid-im-ka-giw-di-ha-thit-kimid-dit)  
> Wild, my good peeps. Wild.

Karkat woke to a pounding in his horns and the slow burn of silver wrapped tight around his chest, anchoring him to a post. Hunters then. Shit. Curling his lip, he opened his eyes and stretched his muscles as much as he could, narrowing his eyes at the figure that was standing in the shadows.

“Alright douchebag, what is it this time? Torture? Hostage taking?”

“Ah, so you’re not new to this,” said the idiot (seriously, who even wore shades like that in a dark room?) striding towards him.

“Seriously, do you even know what you’ve done here nook-whiff? How many of you are there? Four? Five, maybe? You're going to be overwhelmed in seconds by my hive.”

“Calm down shouty, we’re gonna be fine if your friends attack us. Don’t underestimate us just yet.”

“You fucking used dead man’s blood on me. You clearly have no idea what you’re doing. I’m going to laugh at your decimated carcass after Ga"- _wow that is a pure silver sword in your face, god these assholes are rich_ -"mzee is done with you.”

“Aww, but nubs, you’re not going to be able to laugh if you don’t open those lips of yours and tell me where your hive is before I shove this katana down your throat.”

He only blinked. “Listen, kid, we both know why you’re doing this, and no, he would not be impressed”- a little look at his bonds to his family and he knew everything he needed to-“ with your petty threats, and frankly, neither am I. _Just let the adults handle this,_ **_lil’ man_ ** _.”_

A flash of well suppressed (shock-fear-anger- _pain_ ) emotion across his face, and he drew his arms back to swing, but was interrupted by a scream of abject terror.

Recognizing his moirail's handiwork, Karkat called him over with a tug while *finally* pushing the toxic blood out of his system and making it look like his eyeballs were bleeding ( _you didn’t have to, but this douche had really been just pathetically irritating_ ). Toxins out of his system, Karkat just sort of shrugged the chains off and started walking towards the door, cut off by a flash of silver and the boy in front of him.

“Where are you going, nubs? I’m not done with you.”

“You really don't get it do you? You lost. My moirail is here.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It will soon,” Karkat scoffed, rolling his eyes as he pointed to the door behind him _. Damn, they fucked up my jacket,_ Karkat thought as the hunter executed a small half turn just as a large object hit the steel door. Taking advantage of his distraction, Karkat kicked him in the head and yelled out to Gamzee. “YEAH, I'M IN HERE BRO.”

A loud honk answered him.

Snorting, Karkat stepped over the teen (?) on the floor clutching his nose after snapping his sword.

“Aw bro, that’s not cool, I just got that, don’t you know how expensive swords like that ar-“

He shut him up by pinning him to the wall by the throat and biting his jaw, giving him much needed blood and only pulling off after he was so drained he could barely flop around on the floor. Despite Karkat only learning to not kill humans when he fed on them from Kanaya two sweeps ago, he had pretty good control by now. Summoning his sickles with a small gesture, he yelled out.“STAND BACK DOOFUS, I GOT THIS.” Grinning, Karkat sliced through the reinforced steel lock, only seconds before he was enveloped in a hug only his moirail could give. Shooshing him with a small smile, Karkat eventually had to push him off, getting a little blood on his hands as he did. “Come on, my jacket is ruined enough, let’s  go to the hive.” Ignoring a weak stab at his ankle, they walked down the hallway, cradled against each other’s side.


	2. Chapter 2

Karkat jolted out of bed at a loud crash of a door shattering, and ran out of his room as he summoned his sickles. Tripping over his sweatpants, he gaped in horror as Tavros was impaled in front of him, his stupid crop top stained mahogany as his metal legs gave out. He looked into that fucking pair of shades, and Karkat bolted the other way, straight for Gamzee. Slamming open the door to his room, he shook him awake, panic consuming him. “WAKE UP, ITS HUNTERS, WE HAVE TO G-“ Karkat froze, hearing footsteps. _Stupid, stupid! You led them to him! You knew he was sluggish after he woke up!_ Snatching up his sickles from where he dropped them, he fell into a defensive crouch, determined to defend his moirail to the end. “ _Get away from him_ ,“ Karkat snarled at the idiotic shades in the doorway.

“No can do, bro.”

Spreading his tiny wings he rushed forward, refusing to let him near.

“Damn,” said a voice behind him. “Almost a shame you’re a demon.”

Steel slid out of him, his mutant blood, almost like a human's, dripping off it like cough syrup. He fell. “Gamzee, run,” he whispered out, darkness rushing up to meet him for the second time this week.

 

\------------ 

 

Karkat felt clawed fingertips running through his hair, shaking so badly they got tangled in his hair. Cracking his eyes open, he saw a blurry shape, covered in red and purple. “Gamzee?” he croaked.

“Y-yeah bro, how you feeling?” he whispered back.

Karkat raised a hand, shushing him softly as he gently papped his cheek. “I’m fine, you gorgeous wreck, how are you doing? You’re hurt, aren’t you?” Tears dripped down Gamzee’s face. Dimly, Karkat noted the way it trickled along the edges of his scars.

“Thought I all up and lost you to that shits of un-miraculous hunter, bro,” Gamzee whispered in a shaking voice. “Thought you were mother fuckin snatched up from me for no reason than they all up and felt like you didn’t belong. I mean, shit bro, you don’t even let me kill no motherfuckers anymore. Why they gotta come after us brother? Why they gotta do that?” He looked so fragile Karkat could swear he could just shatter at any moment.

“Hey, hey, look at me, ok? I’m here. I’m real. I’m alive. You saved me from the fish-bitch herself, some shitty hunters aren’t going to get past you. I’m fine. We’re fine. OK?” Gamzee nodded shakily. “Mind helping me up? I need to heal Tavros.”

He smiled shakily. “Sure bro. Always happy to help a motherfucker out.”

Tavros was lying on his back in the hallway, clearly bleeding, when Karkat stumbled out, supported by his moirail. “Oh, hey Karkat, I am glad that bleeding out is no longer a thing I have to do, and also, I can have this um, cut? Healed, because it hurts, quite a lot actually. So, I would just like to thank you for that. Also, are you ok? I know that losing blood is very bad for you, because of your powers and stuff, so I would like to know if I can help you in anyway? Preferably, after I am no longer bleeding.”

”Wow, thanks for the offer.” Karkat commented dryly. “Hold still, ok?” He willed the blood in Tavros’ body to close the cuts, sealing out dirt and germs. He left the spilled blood on the floor, not wanting the rest of Tavros’ blood to get infected. The first time he had put someone’s blood back into their body they got so many viruses, he still wasn’t sure how they survived.  “Yada yada yada, you’ll be dizzy, get some fluids, **not** Faygo, turn on your fan, and you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks Karkat, for the help, and stuff.”

He made a noise of agreement, and turned back to Gamzee, assessing his injuries. Clucking his tongue, he saw the shallow cuts on his arms, the slightly bloodied rips in his shirt. “Alright, you’ll be fine in a day or so. Thank Gog for highbloods, amiright? Now where’d you put the rookie hunters? You made sure not to kill them, right?”

Gamzee lit up. “Oh yea! Don’t worry bro, I just shoved ‘im into the basement for now, not your movie room either, the laundry one with the locks! I fastened em too, so they can’t just stroll out like last time.” He looked so proud it made Karkat’s blood-pusher go into his throat.

“Good job, Gamzee. I’m really proud of you for not losing control. I know it’s hard for you, and you’ve been getting a lot better at it, too.” Shaking himself, Karkat took stock of the situation. Terezi and Vriska had been shopping for a new truck after the old one got doused in holy water and then burned, and Kanaya had been hanging out with that Jade girl honing her space powers, so no one but them had been in the house.

“Hey Gamz?” he asked as they walked shakily towards the kitchen for some food. Eggs maybe. That sounded easy. “How many hunters attacked? Don’t want to have a nasty surprise when I go to deliver them to their little groups or whatever they call ‘em.”

Gamzee looked thoughtful.“Just the one Karbro, weird aint it? Straight up wicked that he didn’t bring his pals though.”

He nodded, honestly surprised. What had he been thinking, attacking a hive alone, and one that had already beaten him one before? _Whatever_ , he thought. _Not my problem._  Made returning him a lot easier. Maybe he’d include a note this time, too. Something along the lines of ‘hey fuckwads, keep better track of this guy or he’ll attack a hive alone again.’ Short and sweet. Somehow, Karkat had gotten frying-pan deep into frying eggs, his body mechanically flipping them as he planned things out, and he shoved them on to one of the rarely seen clean plates. Forking them into his mouth as his moirail filched pieces from the plate, he decided the fucker could wait a little while. Tavros had a Pokémon marathon planned, and he wasn’t going to disappoint that guy. He was pretty alright if you gave him a chance, and somehow managed to have a healthy moirallegience with Vriska-fucking-Serket of all people, so he was good in his book. Shit, he might have to surrender the title of romance master to him. But that could all wait until after the marathon. For now, Karkat had some popcorn to pop.


	3. Chapter 3

Dave woke in a fairly normal laundry room with a demon-juggalo-in-shitty-face-paint-and-a-murder-aura-the-size-of-Texas style headache. Checking the locked door, he rifled around for his strife sylladex and modus, both having been taken. He paced around for a while, realizing it was a bad idea to go after the hive alone for hurting Roxy, and eventually fell asleep against a washing machine. _Might as well sleep until they kill you or whatever, right?_ **_(You are fucking freaking out what about Dirk and Rose they’ll go after them they can't take them why did you think you could do this shitshitshit you’re so fucked fuuuuuck)_ ** _Yeah, you’re so chill_. Suddenly, the lights are on. The bright lights nearly blind him, sending the hunter flailing into a fighting stance, eyes flickering around the room. It’s the shouty one. Didn’t he stab him? What the dick-shitting fuck is up with dude?

He looked at Dave in annoyance for a few seconds, and then turned his head to yell at someone out of sight. “GAMZEE, I THOUGHT YOU KNOCKED HIM OUT? WHY IS HE AWAKE?”

The clown answered in a relaxed voice. “Shit bro, must be miracles!”

The shouty dude just shakes his head in defeat. “Great,” he grumbled. “This makes my life soooo much easier, you Faygo-brained juggalo.”

Dave raised an eyebrow, relaxing his stance.

The demon looked at him sharply when he moved. “Ok,” he says, a grimace on his face. “You can obviously walk, so it’s more of a question of how likely you are to try to kill us with your bare hands. Can you manage to not do that? Fucking ruins breakfast.”

 _Shit, you must have been out for at least a day_. Dave realized the demon was wearing crab pajamas. He opened his mouth, throat dry. “Dude,” he croaked. “Are you wearing crab pajamas?”

 

\-------------- 

 

_Did this fucking twenty year old actually ask you about your pajamas? Fuck this._

“Tavros,” Karkat said suddenly, turning his head in his direction as Tavros was eating cereal at the kitchen table.

“Um, yeah Karkat?” he says, turning his head to face him, curiosity in his wide brown eyes.

“How hypocritical of me would it be to murder this guy?”

He looks thoughtful, considering it for a moment. “Pretty hypocritical, I think, as you’re the one who made the ‘no killing humans unless it is absolutely necessary’ rule, and also, it seems like a bad idea, to me, um, just saying.”

Karkat glared. “I really hate it when you’re being rational,” he snapped.

Tavros rolled his eyes, mumbling ‘yeah, sure’ under his breath as he continued to eat his cereal.

Turning back to the idiot in his laundry room, Karkat rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to take that as a yes then. Come on. Follow me, and don’t touch anything, we’ve got so many wards up and I hate dealing with them. And I swear to god if you try to kill, hurt, or maim us I’m swear giving you to Gamzee for paint, shitty rule or no. You get all that?” 

The prick just nodded and shoved his hand in his pockets, strolling behind him.

Grabbing his keys, Karkat called out to Tavros as he dispelled just enough wards on the door to get the hunter through. “Don’t let Gamzee bake anything while I’m out, ok? Remember what happened last time!”

“Got it!” Came a voice from the kitchen.

The kid was just standing there. Scoffing, he just pushed him through the door, locking it behind him as he put the wards back up. Telling him to get into the red pickup truck, Karkat checked his phone for directions before starting to drive towards this ‘base’. This was going to suck.

 

\-------------

 

Dave understood approximately jackshit of what was going on. He was being driven to an unknown location by a demon who had crab pajamas on and a perpetual scowl. Also, they apparently have a rule against killing humans? A real day of firsts, people.

The demon stopped at a stoplight, and looked over at him. “Put on your fucking seat belt,” he snapped. “The last thing I need is to be pulled over, douchebag.”

Dave raised an eyebrow, but complied. _No need to make him angrier. He’d probably explode if you were going to be honest with yourself_. Suddenly, they pulled into street parking by a shop near Dave’s house.

“Here,” he says, decapchalogueing his sylladex and hash modus. “You recognize this, don’t you? Go home and stop bothering us. I don’t want to have to deal with Vriska hassling me about it.” The demon shoved Dave out of the car, threw his modus and sylladex at him, and drove off.

Pedestrians were staring at him. Looking down at himself, Dave had multiple cuts and bruises, torn clothes and had just gotten shoved out of a car. He decided to ignore it, and re-equipped his modus and specibus, and started for home. Well, this was going to suck.


	4. Chapter 4

“You did what.” Dirk and Rose were looking at Dave as Roxy disinfected his cuts and bound them up.

“Listen, it seemed like a good idea at the time, alright? It’s not like I died or anything.”

“Only because they didn’t kill you! You got knocked out and thrown in the basement!” Dirk was gesturing with his hands furiously. “For some godforsaken reason they have some sort of rule for not killing humans, if they weren’t fucking with you, and they obviously knew where we live! You put everyone in danger for petty revenge! You can’t be so reckless all the time!”

Dave sighed. “Look, I know it was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have attacked the hive alone. I just, I just worry about you guys, ok? I thought I could take them, and I couldn’t, and I messed up. I’m sorry, ok?”

Dirk sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know kid, you just can’t run around being a hero all the time, ok? You can’t fight everything.”

“Honestly, if only so I don’t hafta patch ya up all the time Davey! A girl can only do so much!” Roxy said, trying to lighten the mood, but the way her voice trembled ruined the effect.

“Rox, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I’ll be more careful-”

Roxy wiped her eyes hurriedly. “No no, it’s fine Davey, I’m alright.” She said, hurrying out of the door with the med kit.

Rose gave him a pointed look as she and Dirk left, leaving Dave on the couch stewing in regrets.

 

\-------------

 

“KARKAAAAAAAAT, THE HUNTER WRECKED MY ROOM! MY DRAGONS ARE RUINEEEEEEEED!” Terezi shook her decapitated plush at him for the hundredth time.

“For the last time Terezi, you did that, I have a video of you doing it for your YouTube channel. And do you two really have to bastardize each other’s speech patterns all the time? It’s stupid.”

Vriska swooned into Terezi’s arms. “Ooooooooh noooooooo, I’m Kaarkaat, and I’m soooooooo leaader-ly, I’m a bossy praat aallllllll the tiiiiime.” They dissolved into giggles, pushing and shoving at each other. It was honest to Gog sickening.

“Look, I would know if he touched anything because the wards would have gone off, ok? He didn’t even cross the threshold of your room, he just opened the door. Calm your shit.” Karkat rolled his eyes.

“Oh bluh bluh Karkat, you’re just a boring prissy face.”

“Yeah yeah ‘Rezi. Leave me alone already, I’ve got course work.”

Vriska rolled her eyes. “Karkat, we’re demons, why do you do so much class work all the time? It’s not like you are ever going to need it.”

His face twisted. “Well maybe some people don’t want to just loot corpses and kill hunters for the rest of their shit-tastic life, but I can understand how you might have some trouble tearing your thoughts from pailing yourself stupid to think of others. I want to be able to make a living.”

Tavros snorted. “Uh, Karkat, you do realize, that, we aren’t, living, right?”

Terezi patted Vriska’s arm fondly. “They grow up so fast,” she said, not hiding her snickering.

Vriska grinned. “Pupa, you’re adorable.”

Tavros gave her a half bow. “Any, thing, for you, Marquise.”

Karkat made a gagging noise. “Just get a room already. I don’t even care which pair, just get out. The kitchen is for eating, not being disgustingly red for each other.”

Vriska rolled her eyes.“Look, iiiiiiit’s not like we complain when you and Gamzee stay up late having a jam, so I-”

“Um, yes, you do, Vriska, not going to lie, here.”

Karkat gestured at Tavros triumphantly. “My point stands. And at least I don’t do it public, unlike some people here,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the flushed pair.

The girls rolled their eyes in sync, and turned away to their room, doubtless to go plot something, whispering furiously. Karkat shuddered. That was still creepy.

“Come on Gamz,” he said, turning to his palemate. “Our pile is calling.”

Tavros flushed. “I’ll just, uh, go, then.” He beat a well oiled retreat.

Karkat slung an arm around Gamzee’s shoulder and dragged him to their pile. They had plenty to jam about.

 

\-------------

 

“Ok, this hive is a serious threat, so we need to get some ideas. Any suggestions, you guys?” Dirk raised an eyebrow over his anime shades.

Rose looked pensive. “Perhaps, at the risk of sounding like some white girl in a horror movie, we ought to split up. Then we can focus on more targets at once.” Her black lips twisted in a grimace. “There are six in the hive, as we know, all with varying levels of power, and some stick together, regardless of situation, as we saw. I believe I can take the space demon, I have some experience.”

Dirk nodded. “I can take the breath one, he seems to be really powerful, probably a Page. Roxy?”

She smiled determinedly. “I’ll take the Thief and Seer! I make it up as I go along, so the Seer can't see me! And the Thief never leaves her side, so I can get em both!”

Dave leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms. “Sounds good. The juggalo never leaves shorty alone, and now I know he's Blood, so I can plan for it.”

Dirk stood up straighter from his respite on the unforgiving wall. “Sounds good. Anyone want Wendy's?”


	5. Chapter 5

Karkat was getting sick of this asshole following him, incompetently at that. He could have excused the grocery store. They lived in vaguely the same area, who knows. Sure, he might stare a little as him and his moirail gently squabbled over how much Faygo to buy. (“No, we are not getting twelve bottles of this swill, we will get four like every other time, because no matter how much we get you drink it all in a week, so stop your whining immediately, chucklefuck.”). Maybe for some reason he absolutely needed to go clothes shopping while Karkat went shopping with Gamzee and Tavros to replace some of the clothes that had gotten torn up during the attack. The amount of crop tops Tavros insisted on was truly a spectacle worth watching. By the time he started watching him and Gamzee on their paledates, however, Karkat was fed up. This was going to require some leadering.

“Alright fucknozzles, we’ve all noticed the assholes following us by now, or you're painfully obtuse, so any fucking suggestions?”

Vriska raised her hand. “How about we-”

“Vetoed.” Karkat said without missing a beat. He looked a Tavros’ raised hand quizzically. “Yeah, man?”

Tavros lowered his hand, a bit nervous from all the attention, but soldiered on. “How about, no one going out, in groups, of less than three? They say, that there's safety, you know, in numbers, so.”

Karkat nodded decisively. “Alright, I can do my coursework from home anyway. This might help us figure out which one is following who. They probably had to keep an eye on a couple people at once, considering that we outnumber them. This could help. And for Gog’s sake, don't murder anyone. That goes for you too, Terezi, don't think I didn't see you scheming with Vriska. It'd only make trouble we don't need.”

“Yeah yeah, shouty. We get it, you're the leader. Did you get my chocolate bars? I’m hungry.” Vriska was sprawled across the couch, ass in Terezi’s lap and head in Tavros’, wearing her bright orange overalls she bought half a sweep ago.

Karkat rolled his eyes. “You're going to get sick eating so many, but yeah, they're in the nutrition block.”

Kanaya raised her eyebrows. “And you accuse me of being a meddler. I find this quite amusing, because of the reversal of our classical roles. I believe the human epithet for this situation is ‘how the consumption plateaus have been overturned’.”

Gamzee snorted. “He's always like this, space-sis, I dunno where you been at. Does enough worrying on his lonesome for all of us.”

Karkat glared, hands on his hips. “Shut up. I'm going to study, don't destroy anything.” He walked out, Gamzee shadowing him, whining contritely.

“Awww, brooooooo, you know I didn’t-”

 

\------------- 

 

“Yeeeeesssss!” Karkat shut his computer and leapt off the stool by the kitchen counter where he had been working. “Fucking finally! I fucking owned that enormous shitty ass-rumpus shit-weasel essay! Suck it, Dr. Yifuiy!”

Kanaya smiled at him from her position on the floor as she cut out fabric for her newest idea. “Congratulations Karkat. I know you were uncertain you would be able to finish before the deadline. I believe celebrations are in order.” She set down her fabric scissors, brushing off her skirt as she stood. “Perhaps we should go to Denny’s as a group? I suspect it would do us all good to have some fun.”

Karkat grinned exuberantly. “Sounds great, Kanaya. I’ll grab everyone, and then we can walk over together.” He snorted a bit. “I wonder what those hunters will think. Man, this was a great idea.”

 

\------------- 

 

The walk was noisy, Gamzee and Tavros babbling about a new rap artist, the whole team congratulating Karkat, and everyone talking about how nice it was to get out of the house for something other than chores. They converged on Denny’s in a blobby mass, Gamzee with his arm around Karkat’s waist, Kanaya trying to convince Tavros to let her make him a new wardrobe, and Terezi and Vriska blatantly scheming. A vaguely alarmed waitress led them to a table (she must have been new), and Terezi and Vriska ambled off to the jukebox to put in their usual selection of a random song 23 times in a row. They didn’t bother looking at the menu, chattering excitedly as they placed their orders. They were discussing the merits of eyebrow piercings versus lip piercings when the door chime clinked again. They looked towards it, and fell silent as the Strilondes filed in.

The waitress led them to the table directly next to them, and they sat silently.

The hive stared at them intently as the hunters studiously ignored them, watching just as intently out of the corners of their eyes.

The waitress hurriedly took their drink orders, sensing the tension, and made a hasty retreat.

Tavros hid behind Vriska as she and Terezi bared their teeth in what could be possibly construed as a smile. Gamzee waved, smiling in a deceptively vacant way, eyes half lidded and sharp. Kanaya smiled, fangs peeking out over her lips. “Hello Rose, I’ve been seeing a lot of you, but you’ve never said hello. Are you perhaps a bit nervous?”

Rose smiled back. “Oh, not at all, I’m sorry I gave you that impression. Perhaps we should get together at a later date, to get to know each other better.”

Kanaya looked at her coyly. “How forward of you, madam. It’s a date.” Terezi wolf-whistled. “Get some of that, girl!” Vriska punched her in the arm. “Nice job, Kan.” Karkat only groaned, putting his head in his hands as Gamzee rubbed his back soothingly.

At the other table, Dirk glared at Rose behind his shades as Roxy tried to give her a high five.

She turned primly to her menu as Dave raised his eyebrows at her over his shades. “Yes, brother dearest?”

“Nope. Not going there.”


	6. Chapter 6

After their ritual of scrabbling around in pockets for change and credit cards, leaving their normal tip of $83.57, 64% exactly, the red team got up, pulling on jackets in a flurry of movement, and began trekking home, deliberately ignoring the Strilondes. Vriska was boasting about the new truck she had bought with Terezi as they turned into an alleyway, the rest of the red team exchanging wearied looks. Halfway through, they all came to a stop with a sharp smack against a barrier.

Karkat rubbed his head, wincing at the quickly forming bruise as he turned to look at the assembled Strilondes. “Why me? Why do I have to be the one to deal with all these hell-tainted shit-pan dumb-ass fuckery-spewing blithering feculent bulge-heads?”

Gamzee glared at the hunters. “Maybe ‘cause some mirthless motherfuckers don’t know when to stop going after those who already showed 'em how much stronger they are all up and being. May-haps they ought to up and motherfuckin _REMINDED_ , pabe.”

Karkat turned to glare. “Nope. You stop that. There’ll no murder, chuckle-fuck. I _will_ pap your ass into oblivion in front of _everyone_. **_Again._** ”

Gamzee settled with a put-out expression. “Broken kneecaps wouldn’t kill them,” he said sulkily.

Kanaya drew her chainsaw, revving echoing around the confined space. “I do not believe he is entirely wrong, Karkat. I have grown _quite_ tired of being watched relentlessly. My fabric selections are not as interesting as all that, and I’m afraid none of our friends have quite the mind for cloth. I would not find a good stress-reliever amiss, after the week I have been suffering because of petty suspicion.”

Dirk glowered from behind his shades. “We don’t appreciate demons preying on our city.”

Vriska threw her head back and laughed. “Draaaaaaaamaaaaaaaa king. Shouty here doesn’t even let us kill people anymore, goooooooog. Calm down already.”

Dirk narrowed his eyes. “And why should we believe you? All demons do is lie.”

Terezi cackled. “The court vehemently objects! Testimony dismissed on charge of bias.” She leaned forward, sniffing loudly as her expression gentled. “Who did you lose?”

Dave stepped forward quickly, scowling. “You know _nothing_ about my family. Don’t you _dare_ act like we’re the ones hurting people.”

Karkat considered him sadly. “Killing us won’t bring back your brother and mother, you know. Don’t waste your time on those who are only trying to survive, not kill.”

Dirk snarled, leaping forward, sword in hand. Rose and Dave followed close behind, weapons drawn. Roxy scoffed, and drew her gun, bracing herself and shooting.

Tavros knelt instantly, spreading his fingers in front of him and sending the Breeze to make a barrier between Roxy and the rest, and Kanaya settled in front of him, fending off the more unavoidable bullets. Terezi and Vriska danced around Rose, redirecting her blows and leaping about like vixens. Gamzee fended off blows from Dave’s sword, clubs sending him back each time. 

Karkat snapped Dirk’s katana with his twin sickles, using his own force against him, spinning around to meet his shocked face and fresh blade. He met his blows, knowing the tells for flash-stepping from his moirail, smiling a little, grateful for the chance to practice his form. They traded blows, Karkat spinning lightly on his heels each time Dirk flickered away, silver meeting iron in a crash of metal.

And then Dirk tossed aside his blade, leaping back, and drew another, coated in holy water.

Startled by the sudden change, Karkat stepped back, but Dirk swept in, cutting a swathe through Karkat’s left shoulder, and kicked him to the ground, sickles thrown away, arm connected by bone and scraps of tissue only, hissing from the blessed silver. Karkat stared at him, wide-eyed, as Dirk drew back his sword for a last blow, the scent of mutant blood filling the tight space.

In a split second, a flash of purple and black was the only warning, before Dirk was thrown back against the side of a building, three ribs shattered from the force of the iron club swung into them.

Dave fell, strike not having been met, and prepared to go after his opponent, when a wave of terror rolled out, forcing Vriska to her knees, shaking, making Terezi tense up, Tavros to lose the barrier, Kanaya to sink to a knee.

Dave gave a whimper, inundated by memories. Rose slipped, blows hitting empty space, and hit her head, before being gripped by terror. Roxy gave a wail of fear, shaking, and fell to her hands and knees.

Gamzee snarled, and slammed Dirk against the brick wall, one arm holding him to the wall, the other slamming a club against his left arm, before throwing him to the other side of the alley, the crack of ribs following the impact against the wall.

Terezi shook herself, tears dripping out of her sightless eyes as she grit her teeth, before shaking Tavros. “Come on, idiot! Help your moirail!” She tossed him in Vriska’s direction, and turned to Kanaya, the rainbow drinker already struggling to her feet, chainsaw captchalogued.

“I will get the hunters, go to Karkat!” Kanaya said urgently, and Terezi nodded, helping the mutant up.

Karkat struggled to Gamzee with Terezi's help, him raising his club, about to shatter the hunter’s skull, and collapsed on his shoulder. “G’mzee,” he said, coughing. “I think ‘m gonna faint."

Gamzee spun around, eyes wide in shock and fear for his moirail, and caught the mutant, holding him close.

The aura of terror disappeared, and Terezi ducked around the shuddering moirails, picking up Dirk. “Don’t stab me, I’m trying to help.” She hissed.

He only wheezed in answer, eyes rolling back in his head from the pain, shades still hanging off his nose.

She rushed to the hastily assembled Strilondes, pushing him into their arms, frantic. “Run! Once Karkat faints, he’s out of control! Get out!”

They fled, panicked and afraid for their brother, and Kanaya gathered her strength, popping the Prospitans into their living room.

Immediately, she collapsed, pale, and glow completely gone out.

Terezi rushed for their stores of blood, turning on Tavros’s fan, grabbing candles and matches, and Tavros held Vriska tightly, keeping her from lashing out as she sobbed and whimpered, overcome by her memories of her mother and her victims.

“Shh, sh, it’s not real, she’s dead, she’s dead, I’ve got you...” Tavros comforted her, tearing up.

Gamzee shook like a leaf, laying Karkat on the couch, and bit at his wrist, lowering it to his moirail’s mouth to drink.

Karkat gulped greedily, flesh knitting together, before pulling away. “You’re. Not hurt, are. You? ‘M sorry. Got. Hurt, made you. Worry. Love you. Sorr..” He fainted, lolling onto the cushions, and Gamzee snatched him up.

“Gonna put him to ‘coon.” He rasped, voice hoarse, and stumbled back to his room. No one followed.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Dave was half-asleep in the chair next to Dirk’s hospital bed, his brother’s arm in a heavy cast, chest bound tightly to keep his broken ribs in place as they healed, when the door was hesitantly opened. Faking unconciousness, he looked towards the door through slitted eyes, watching as Karkat stepped in quietly, a vase of flowers in his arms. Rose had said that the demons would not cause harm to anyone in their city if unprovoked, but he remained wary, watching closely.

Karkat set the vase down on the bedside table, and turned to the door to leave.

Obviously, this was the perfect time for Dirk to bolt up, as he always did whenever regaining conciousness, and then land heavily on the thick hospital mattress from the pain in his chest.

Karkat jolted back in surprise. “OH MY F- what the fuck?! What?” He looked at the dazed hunter in shock, eyes wide.

Dirk looked at him in half-terrified fury as he propped himself up on his elbows. “ _You_ ,” he snarled. “Why the _fuck_ are you here? Co-” he broke off, coughing. “Come here to finish the job?” He was tense as a strung bow, eyes wide even in the painfully bright hospital light.

Dave flash-stepped over, nearly sliding on the slick hospital floor as he scrambled to hold Dirk down. “Calm down, stop fucking struggling! Lie the fuck down, you couldn’t do shit anyway, dumbfuck! He only brought some fucking flowers! Rose already _told_ you not to attack them! Holy shit, bro!” Dirk looked at him like he had grown a second head.

“Welp, I’m just going to leave then, fuck you for the arm and get better soon, I guess, I’m going to leave right the fuck now-” Karkat’s escape was thwarted yet again, this time by a silver katana whistling past his ear, splitting it horizontally, and imbedding itself in the door, causing it to swing shut. “Sweet mother grub’s oozing vestigial third oral sphincter, what the hell, dipshit?!” He spun around, clutching his bleeding ear. The flesh knit together, and he wiped his blood on his jeans. They were stained to hell and back anyway.

Dirk glared. “What the hell do you want anyway? How the fuck did you track down my fucking hospital room?” His eyes were narrowed into tiny slits.

“Is it illegal to give people ‘Sorry my batshit moirail probably traumatized your whole family and shattered five of your ribs’ flowers?! People don’t always have ulterior motives, you abhorrent column of smarmy filth!” Karkat huffed, crossing his arms. “And this guy in my Advanced Writing Techniques class majors in Medicine, so I asked him to check the database for you. I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead, asswipe. Just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean I’m devoid of _empathy_. Dickweasel.” He turned to the door for the third time in ten fucking minutes, when he was stopped yet a-fucking-gain by a douchebag in shades.

“Wait,” Dave said, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What the fuck is a ‘moy-rail’?”

Karkat looked at him over his shoulder, face filled with disgust. “Humans don’t have moirails?”


	8. Chapter 8

The next half hour could have been easily been predicted by anyone who knew Karkat as anything other than a passing aquaintance. The Striders, however, were very much not, and so were actually quite interested in his detailed, in-depth description of quadrants and their numerous uses in demonic society.

“Wow,” Dave said, moving from his position of rapt listening. “Demons are fucking weird.”

Karkat glared. “Like you’re one to talk, asshole. Have you _seen_ humans?”

Dave made a face. “Fair.”

The door slammed open, and Gamzee scooped Karkat up, carrying him bridal-style. “We gotta jet, brother, the kitty-bitch and strong-douche came at Tavvy again, need to get hive before Vris-sis freaks.”  

Karkat groaned. “Motherfuck, again? You don’t need to carry me, you know. I have walk-stubs.”

“Yeah, but you can’t stilt-walk.”

They flickered out of the room.

Rose and Roxy peered in from opposite sides of the door, smiling their cryptic Lalonde smile. They walked in, carry trays of food from the hospital’s cafeteria, and sat next to each other, disturbingly close to Dirk’s bed. Roxy waggled her eyebrows.

Rose waggled hers in a more threatening manner. “My, what interesting company you keep, brothers mine. Murderous juggalos and short, scruffy, dare I say,” she looked Dave straight in the eyes, “attractive, even, demons, and so soon after our altercation. Fascinating. Do tell us about their intricate system of romance and the role it plays in their vast, expansive society, which has a simply fascinating caste-system. Do tell.”

Dave groaned. “Fucking Seers,” he muttered as he buried his head in his hands.

Dirk grunted. “I wasn’t the one eye-fucking shorty, I left that to Davey over here.” He gestured with his unbroken arm, tugging slightly at the IVs.

Dave sat back in his chair. “Nope. Didn’t happen. I have no idea what you’re talking about. These are the ramblings of a mad man, we can’t trust anything he says.”

Roxy snorted. “Oh yah, it’s not like you don’t have a type for scruffy, excitable people who turn out to be demons or anything. Pfft, the Crocker-Harleyberts? Never heard of them.”

Dave glared.

 

\----------

 

Karkat took a deep breath in through his nose. Out. “Tavros,” he began, as he dabbed aloe on the holy water burns. “When you saw the two hunters coming towards you, holding holy water and armed, why didn’t you _run the fuck away like someone with a single drop of common fucking sense?”_ He was trying his best not to slap the fidgeting taurus into the stratosphere.

“In my, uh, defense, they said, that they wanted, to talk? And, I really, wanted to trust them, you know.”

Vriska looked very much like she wanted to cry and furious about it. “Gog, Pupa! You’ve got to be more careful! Someday you’re going to get hurt and we won’t be able to fix it! We both know how hard it is to fix even holy water burns! He was out for three days after fixing his damn arm, much less someone else’s! Arg! You can’t- you can’t keep doing this! I've already gotten you hurt enough, just- just-” She stamped her foot in frustration.

Kanaya had absconded the moment Vriska began tearing up, Terezi going with her hesitantly, deciding this was between moirails. Gamzee had vanished, leaving Karkat to their emotional torment as he tried to fix up Tavros as quickly as possible.

Tavros reached for her, cupping her face with a heavily bandaged arm, and Vriska looked at him, miserable.

Karkat absconded immediately, deciding Tavros’ injuries could wait. Forever, possibly. He _did_ **_not_ ** _mind. At all._


	9. Chapter 9

The club was thrumming with energy. Karkat breathed in the taste of new bonds forming, snapping just as quickly by the next song. He felt calm and filled with energy, but he knew it would fade the moment he left if he didn’t get something more solid in him. He kept an eye out for people who already had hickeys. They’d be less likely to notice when he took a few ounces. He never took more than they could give, because if nothing else, the aftertaste of fear was nasty. Looking around, Karkat took a look at his hive.

Gamzee was hanging around the bar, winding people up and feeding off it, leaving them calm and friendly. Vriska and Terezi were playing cards and games of chance in the corner, right in front of the strobe lights, and Gamzee would check in on them every so often, snatching up their opponent’s resentment as the matesprits wolfed down the luck and possibilities like children at a candy store. Tavros and Kanaya were tag-teaming people, Kanaya taking the space between herself and her mark, nipping and feeding lightly, and Tavros keeping their breaths even and slow, leaving them clear-headed and more free to make decisions, energizing him even more.

Satisfied that they were following the routine and not making trouble, he searched for a mark. He mingled, even sucking up his pride and checking out the bar, to no avail. He considered asking Kanaya to share, and then discarded that thought with extreme prejudice. The song ends, and the DJ switched, the new one introducing himself as “Hella Stri the Music Guy”. Karkat turned around, raising his eyebrows, and immediately turned around. Of *fucking* course. Can’t get a decent, actually _energizing_ meal without assholes popping up like mushrooms after a Gog-damned flood. Lovely. Catching his desperate gaze, Gamzee nodded him over.

“Hey, noticed you were havin’ a bit of trouble with your mark tonight, brother.” He smiled lazily at him as his pale-mate glowered and crossed his arms.

“Fuck you.” The insult was half-hearted, more of an acknowledgement that he was right than anything.

Gamzee smiled indulgently, and slid his eyes towards a twenty-some near the DJ booth, collar high and nursing a drink, blond hair slicked back. “He’s easy, can only get one-night stands, and probably wants someone to make him forget about those hickeys of his.”

Karkat looked at him suspiciously. “Gamzee, you know how I feel about mind-”

Gamzee waved his hand. “He’s practically screaming it out, brother mine, I couldn’t tune it out if I tried.”

“Well, alright. Thanks, pabe.” Karkat gave him a peck on the cheek, and headed over to his mark, weaving through the crowd. He leaned on the wall next to him, taking a gulp of his drink.

The blond looked over at him. “Ya get dragged here by your friends too?”

Karkat nodded without looking. “Honestly, I mostly came to make sure they don’t fuck up. Once, I was sick, and they went out without me.” He shuddered. “ _Never again._ The amount of bail I had to pay...” He muttered this last bit into his cup. He’s still impressed at the amount of charges they managed to rack up in an hour. He looked over to the blond. “I’m Karkat, by the way. You?”

He looked back at Karkat. “Eridan. Nice ta meet ya, Kar.”

Karkat froze. Oh, he was going to _kill_ Gamzee. Out of all the fucking people, it had to be a goddamn hunter. The one hell-bent on annihilating any demon he saw. The one who involved _bystanders,_ for fuck’s sake. Lovely. He yanked at the thread tying him to Gamzee. _‘Gamzee, we need to get out of here_ **_right now._ ** _Get the others, I don’t give a flying shitwaffle what they’re doing, we need to leave. It’s_ **_Ampora,_ ** _the one John mentioned.’_

Gamzee sent back a _'Honk'_ , leaving Karkat to extract himself without Ampora catching on. He glanced towards the DJ booth, thinking of the other hunter, and found it empty. Karkat’s eyes flicked about, looking for the Strilonde, when he was startled by a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey man,” Dave said, hint of a smirk around his lips. “I was looking for you. Come on, you promised me a dance.” He pulled Karkat to the dance floor, dropping the pretense once they had passed out of sight. “He’s a-”

Karkat interrupted him. “A hunter, yeah, I know. One of my friends warned me about him. Didn’t realize it until I was in too deep, though. Thanks.” He looked up at Dave curiously. “Why’d you help out? Somehow I doubt it was the flowers.”

Dave shrugged. “My sister is kinda a Seer. We had a family meeting in the hospital-” Karkat winced “-and she told us to not provoke you guys anymore. Besides, Ampora is a desperate asshole, anyway. It’s common decency to prevent that sleaze from getting at people.”

Karkat grimaced. “That’s part of the reason I went for him, actually. The easier they are to get, the better chance I have of giving them ‘hickeys’.” He did the air quotes and everything.

Dave colored. “ _What._ ”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “We’ve all got to eat, asshole. It’s not like I’m grabbing people off the streets or anything, I just take a bit from a couple people every so often. Jeez.”

Dave blinked behind his shades. “Yeah, ok. Never really thought about it that way. Huh.”

Gamzee nudged his way through the crowd, touching Karkat’s shoulder. “Everyone’s ready, brother. We gotta up and go, right the motherfuck now. He called the _traitor_ -brother.” Gamzee sneered. He looked at Dave warily. “Thanks for getting my beloved outta there, Stri-bro.”

Dave nodded, tense. “No problem.”

Gamzee and Karkat exchanged a look, and Gamzee took him by the waist, leading him to the rest of their hive, Karkat waving back at Dave as he left. As the hive exited the club, silent and hurried to the last of them, they caught a hint of 3-D glasses. Exchanging a look, they nodded, and the Scourge-Sprits broke from the rest, running to the roofs and leaping towards home, the least likely team to be caught, and the rest piled into the Jeep.

“Well, this sucked.” Karkat muttered as he pulled out quickly, and the rest made sounds of agreement as they drove to their hive.


	10. Chapter 10

Karkat was not having a good week. Or a good month. The last month had been rather unenjoyable, in fact, mostly due to hunters, and being kidnapped by them. Sadly, these ones were much more prepared than the last. Which was why he was currently soaking wet, skin blistering from the holy water, handcuffed with blessed silver, and in the exact middle of a circle of extremely pure salt. This, he decided, was not his day. Partially because he was wet and covered in blisters, partly because he was being threatened by that sleazy dude with the scarf, but mostly because Sollux-fucking-Captor was within fifty feet of him.

“You listen here and you listen good Captor, you’re the lowest form of scum I’ve ever had the ultimate displeasure to ever look upon, you skinny bag of elbows and betrayal! You and your fucking “change of heart” -change of heart my ass, you were being led around like bark-beast on a leash by your thrice damned plague-ridden bulge! You switched sides before anyone could get out the first syllable of “Sollux Captor is the worst traitor in the history of the universe”! And you know what the worst thing is? We FUCKING _TRUSTED_ YOU, YOU _PIECE OF SHIT!!!!_ We thought you were our friend, and instead you got Terezi blinded, Vriska’s arm blown off, Kanaya a fucking _rainbow-drinker,_ and crippled Tavros! Terezi cried over you! You broke her diamond, you prick! Moirails are supposed to put each other above all else, and you tore out her diamond and doused it in holy water like you were reliving shattering that vial across her eyes! Fuck you, Captor! Fuck you!”

Sollux didn’t react. Instead, he turned to Nepeta. “Their hive-”

“Your hive once, nook-rot!”

“-ith pretty big, we thould call the Thrilondeth. It’ll help even out the numberth.”

Karkat felt a tiny flicker hope, before he squashed it completely. You can’t count on anyone but your hive, and even then, be wary. He’d been taught that the hard way. He proceeded to list to Captor his many faults, starting in alphabetical order, just to prove he could, from his obsession with Apiaries to his Zombie-like attitude after staying up late for an idiotic project he would never finish. He was expounding on his Quirky bullshit the whole hive had had to deal with before he ran off _and turned traitor_ , when the Strilondes walked in, Dirk’s arm still in a cast, with a helpful sword attachment ( _gog,_ what a nerd), and then immediately froze in horror at the scene in front of them.

Dave interrupted Karkat's on-going rant. “You guys _really_ fucked up. Like, you guys are more fucked than a bottom bitch at a leather daddy convention. _Really fucking fucked._ A lot.” His extravagant metaphors had failed him.

Karkat grinned at them. “Hi Dave! I would wave, but I got ambushed by a pack of asholes and one, open parentheses, numeral one, end parentheses, traitorous ex-hive member!” He was viciously cheery, the kind of giddy you get when you know someone’s about to get their due.

Rose was shaking. “Do you know what you have done?” She breathed out shakily. “Do you not know how powerful this hive is? You just ENDANGERED EVERYONE IN THE CITY! THEY WILL TEAR IT APART BRICK BY BRICK FOR HIM! _Do you have any idea how powerful they are, how loyal?”_

Karkat was leaning back on his heels, enormously smug. “Well, most of us, after all, let’s not forget Sollux “Backstab BulgePan” Captor over here. Don’t act as if this case of slimy putrefaction doesn’t exist, Rose. For shame.” He looked over at Sollux, who was going increasingly pale. “Oh, and Captor? Your information is a bit outdated. Gamzee,” he says, grinning savagely, “is a Bard. Of _Rage_.”

Sollux’s eyes went wide, staring at him in disbelief.

And then the screams started.

The Strilondes scrambled into action, even as the blue team gaped in horror at the increasingly loud honks, Rose hastily sweeping away the salt circle, Roxy dabbing at Karkat’s burns, and Dave and Dirk worked at his cuffs, eventually just hitting with their swords in desperation. It was quite close to what a car wash would feel like, if they replaced the sponges & cloths with steel wool. The honking grew louder, and the doors burst into purple flames as they shattered inwards.

Gamzee stood in the middle of it, dripping purple blood which never hit the ground, evaporating into the indigo haze around him. The indigo fog spread through the warehouse instantly as the rest of the red team rushed in, specibi out. As Gamzee looked for his moirail, Kanaya launched herself at Eridan, chainsaw revving, Scourge-Sprits taking  Equius and Nepeta, while Tavros blasted in on a gust of wind, summoned lance sporting a wickedly sharp tip as he took on Sollux, wind against will.

Kanaya ran towards Eridan, dodging his shots, and sawed his gun in half, chasing after him as he fled, even as he took out his next gun, undeterred. Vriska had taken control of Equius, though she could not compel him to hurt his friend, and only barely holding him under her control, Terezi defending her matesprit from a furious Nepeta, cane-sword meeting silver claws. Tavros buffeted his opponent with hail and windstorms, spinning Sollux around to prevent him from using his psionics for fear of hurting his allies, even as he frowned disapprovingly at his former friend and quadrant corner, harsh action from the usually forgiving and docile Taurus.

Gamzee was snarling, eyes slivers of red and indigo, and then they fixed on Karkat, coughing blood and stumbling as he was supported by the Striders.

Karkat looked up at him, grinning wickedly, before he nearly collapsed from his burns. “Give 'em hell, pabe,” he croaked, before fainting.

The Striders caught him, and looked at Gamzee, him only just noticing them.

His lip curled.

Dave put his hands up placatingly. “We're here to help, Strider’s honor,” he said.

Ignoring them, Gamzee stilt-walked to his unconscious moirail, cradling him gently, and stilt-walked away from the raging battle, chirring at his insensate form gently. He brushed the hair out of his moirail’s face, wincing at the burns he found there, frantically checking his eyes, ears, and hands for signs of blindness, deafness, or nerve damage, slumping in relief at finding none.

The Strilondes, unoccupied, looked around, then at each other, and made their way to the doors, only for their progress to be halted by Aradia and Feferi bursting in, eyes wide as they took in the scene, before they broke into a run towards the battle.

“Come and help, we N-EED you!” Feferi called over her shoulder.

The Strilondes looked at each other, and sighed collectively, before rushing back towards the blue team.

“Fucking hell,” Dave muttered, before flash-stepping in front of Aradia, teeth gritted.

“Dave, come on! I've just got a new whip I wanna test it out!” She grinned at him, and grabbed his wrist to lead him towards the brawl, but turned to look at him when he didn't shift.

“Let's go! C’mon, they might be in trouble! I doubt it, but still!”

Dave winced. “I can't let you do that, 'dia. You should get out while you can.”

Her brow furrowed. “We can take them! I believe in us, Dave.”

He shook his head. “Dude, you don't understand. We've got a truce. We legitimately can't take them on. Dirk nearly _died,_ 'dia. We've been keeping watch, too, and as far as we can tell, they don't kill anyone. The shouty one doesn't let them.”

She looked at him in confusion. “And you trust them? What the hell, Dave! Those are my friends! If you won't help them, I will!” She made to push past him, but he drew his sword.

“I'm afraid I can't let you do that, 'dia.”

She narrowed her eyes, and tried to disarm him, and they began fighting in earnest.

Roxy, meanwhile, was laying down suppressing fire on Feferi, who was yelling fish puns at her from behind a stack of pallets.

Rose had joined forces with Kanaya, flirting with her as she pursued the terrified hipster.

Dirk, being the only useful gay out of them, sized up the threat levels of each one, and ran for where Vriska was holding Equius, locking eyes with her single, startled blue as he brought his sword handle hard on the muscular hunter's head, sending him into unconscious.

Vriska grinned suddenly, giving him a momentary heart attack, and spun to face the battle between Tavros and Sollux. Cackling, her symbol appeared between her eyes, and the Gemini went stiff, eyes radiating blue.

Knowing the signs, Tavros banished the winds as quickly as they came, and stood panting on the floor.

Still smirking, Vriska narrowed her eye, and made Sollux slam the blue team against the wall, all swearing up a storm.

“Mew cowards! Stand and fur-ight! AC knows you are strong enough! Purr-thetic! Weakl-

“Wwhat tha’ hell, Rox! Striders, I could understand, but you twwo are supposed to be tha’ smart ones! Teamin’ up wwith demons, a’ all things? The fuck are ya doin’ here-”

“What the glub! Where the shell do you fin the nerve! How shellfish cod you be? There are lives at stake, and y-oar just going to swim away pike cow-”

“I mean of course this was the obvious next step! You should definitely team up with the demons, instead of asking for help, or, you know, not betraying your friends, nope, this is the-”

Vriska spun to face them furiously, good mood evaporating like smoke.“Oh, shut up!!!!!!!! I don't care about what you losers have to say, and neither do they, so shut your blather-traps before I have him gag you!!!!!!!!” Vriska shrieked at them, venom-fangs extending as a vein in her head pulsed. “Aaaaaaaallllllll you even do is complain! Because apparently it's too gogdamned much to be able to live in a normal apartment in the stupid fucking human realm so we don't get our rebellious assess culled for eight fucking months without being attacked! Ugh!” She stamped her foot in anger, and buried her face in Tavros’ broad chest, screaming shrilly in an attempt to relieve her anger. It didn't work.

Tavros held her loosely, frowning at the pinned blue team. “I'm alright, when you try, to hurt me, or something, but it's hurting Vriska, too, now, and I won't, let that happen. So you're going to stop. Now, I mean.”

Vriska stepped out of his embrace, eye blue and puffy, and looking ready to kill anyone who so much as mentioned it in passing. “I say we just kill them now. I mean, Shouty never has to know! We could allllllll just keep our mouths shut about it, and poof! Problem goes away! We could tell him we dumped ‘em in Kansas or some shit! Who cares even! Not me!”

Terezi threw a scalemate plush at her angrily. “We're not going to kill anyone! Dead hunters on our hands is the absolute last thing we need right now, and we all know Mr. Cherry-limeade over here would never forgive us anyway! Kanaya, back me up here!”

Kanaya regarded them cooly. “I believe the human term for this would be, 'no comment’. Rose, is that correct?” She turned to look for the Strilondes, finding nothing. She turned back to her hive, crossing her arms and pursing her lips. “It appears she left. I think it is correct, any how.”

Gamzee looked up from where he was still cradling Karkat in his arms. “Well, sister, I've gotta admit that I'd be up and-”

“Shut up, Gamzee!” The Scourge-sprits said in unison, earning them an indigo glare. They fixed their gazes on Tavros, who immediately began looking everywhere but at them.

“Weeeeeeeellllllll, Toreador?” Vriska drawled impatiently, tapping her foot on the ground.

Tavros looked at her apologetically. “Vriska… we both, um, know how Karkat, would feel about, this, and, since he's our leader, and all, I-”

Vriska frowned grumpily at him. “Gog, fine! Whatever,” she muttered, tucking herself against his chest so he could scritch her hair.

He did so apologetically, subtly adding in light strokes to her horns, making her blush.

“Pupa!” she hissed. “ _Not_ the time!” Setting her shoulders, she turned to look at the others, pouting. “What do _you_ think, then? It's not like we can leave them gallivanting about, trying to kill us. I mean, that guy-” she pointed accusingly at Eridan, who made an offended noise “-involves civilians, for Gog’s sake! And don't get me started on Duality-fetish McTraitor over here!” She gestured at Sollux, who was still floating a few feet off the ground, glassy eyed.

Kanaya raised an eyebrow. “Well, I am always available if you require an impromptutation. Missing limbs do not _necessarily_ need to mean death, after all. Perhaps they would be less confrontational without the use of their right hands. Only a suggestion,” she said lightly.

Terezi glared. “Vetoed, Miss Mint Chip. Tavros, suggestions?”

He looked at Gamzee nervously, before looking back, seeming confident. “Well, we all, know about Gamzee's, chucklevoodoos, I mean, and he's done things before, like putting 'curses’, on people, to make them avoid us, so…” He glanced back at Gamzee. “I'm sorry, if I'm making you, uncomfortable, or causing you to do something you, don't want to, but I think it could help, and-”

Gamzee gave a nod of assent. “I don't mind none, Tavbro. What with the way they've been treating my diamond-” wood splintered and cracked under his right hand, left still stroking Karkat's hair softly, “-I think that's the least I could do for them.”

Terezi nodded sharply. “That's fair,” she said, scanning her friend's bloodied and blistering body. She looked at Gamzee. “Do it.”

Vriska held the hunters completely flat against the wall as Gamzee gently shifted Karkat off of him, and jumped to the concrete floor, purple flip flops smacking against it ominously as he stood in front of the hunters, and forced his voodoos into their minds, binding a feeling of terror into every demonic encounter they had ever had. Sollux, he gave special attention to, weaving in an extra layer of fear around his memories of the red team, and placing a lingering horror over his psionics and his use of them. Panting, he waved at Vriska to release them, and the hunters fled, Nepeta grabbing Equius and carrying him in her arms.

Gritting her teeth, Kanaya concentrated, and they popped into their living room, and collapsed in a heap with the rest of her hive. Kanaya was getting pretty sick of these hunters, too.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm still doing my other ones, i promise! im working on making the chapters longer, so it's taking more time.

Karkat slammed the door to the EngliCrocker-Harleybert house open, already yelling.  “JOHN *FUCKING* EGBERT, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT KILLING PEOP-” He froze at the sight in front of him. The house was trashed, bullet holes and sword slashes everywhere, and directly in front of him, in the EngliCrocker-Harleybert’s very nice living room, Dave and John were frozen, clearly having been fighting to the death.

“You know this guy?” Dave said, still holding his sword, unsubtly eyeing John’s unprotected spots.

John looked at him, frowning pissily, small tornados sneaking up on Dave from behind. “It was an accident! And how does he-” he looked back at Karkat, pointing accusingly at the hunter “-know you?”

Just as they both moved to attack the other in their supposed state of distraction, Karkat wrenched on his bonds to each of them, and they both stopped for a moment, their memories and feelings of Karkat flooding into their minds. When he was sure they weren’t going to kill each other, he let the bonds go slack again, and they stumbled, confused.

John shook it off, and glared at Karkat. “Hey! You know I hate it when you do that!”

Dave looked at him, alarmed. “What was that?!”

“Freaky mind powers is what,” John said, still glaring. “And come on, just let me kill him! He’s such a pain!”

“Hypocritical much?” Dave shot back, reaching for another katana.

“Nope! No more killing people! Both of you, stop that!”

They looked at him, pouting.

Karkat screamed in frustration at their stubbornness. He looked up. “ALL RIGHT, IF ALL OF THE HUNTERS AND DEMONS COULD FUCKING *PLEASE* COME TO THE LIVING ROOM RIGHT NOW!!!”

The assorted sounds of crashing stopped from around the house.

“Is that Karkat?” A voice questioned from the right of them.

 

\--------

 

The EngliCrocker-Harleyberts and the Strilondes sat in the shambles of the living room, glaring daggers at each other.

Karkat stood in the middle, arms crossed as he glared at them both. “Alright,” he said, tapping his foot in agitation. “Who wants to say how they fucked up first?”

Neither side answered.

“Great!” He said, throwing his hands in the air. “I'll do it for you! Let's start with John. John, how did you fuck up?”

John looked away, pouting. “I didn't MEAN to asphyxiate him! I was just really hungry, and I guess I just took too much of his breath. It's not my fault he was asthmatic.”

“Damn right you fucked up! You should have fed more often so you don't get that hungry, idiot. Does not one of you listen to my advice?” Karkat glared.

John stuck his tongue out at him.

Jade flipped him off, siding with her brother.

Returning the gesture without looking, Karkat turned to the Strilondes, eyes narrowed. “And can any of *you* tell me how you fucked up?”

Dave opened his mouth, arms crossed indignantly, but Karkat steamrolled over him.

“You didn't go to me, that's how you fucked up. Me and my hive have more experience than you, *and* larger numbers. But instead, you idiots decided to just charge in again. How did that work out last time?” He raised an eyebrow at the fidgeting hunters (sans Rose, but she hardly counted, with her implacable slightly-amused-but-still-judging-you smirk), giving Dirk a very pointed look. “Not very well, that's how.”

He turned back to face John. “And as for *you*, we are going to have a *long* talk.” He dragged John out by the ear into the kitchen, where loud yelling could be heard mere moments after they disappeared from sight, with weak protests nearly drowned out.

The EngliCrocker-Harleyberts and Strilondes looked at each other.

“So,” Dave said awkwardly, looking at Jade, or, more specifically, her ears. “Are you a furry, or are those real?”

She bared her long, sharp canines at him, open hostility on her face.

Jane hit her with a rolled up newspaper without looking, not taking her eyes off the Strilondes.

Dave nodded pensively. “Got it, not a furry. Hey, can I get a picture of them? Your bone structure has to be wicked cool.”

Dirk buried his head in his hands.

 

\----------

 

John walked out of the kitchen, Karkat pushing him forward until he was in front of the Strilondes. “Sorry I accidentally killed someone,” he said, looking at the floor.

Karkat smacked him upside the head. “And???” He tapped his foot on the floor, aggrieved.

John deepened his pout. “And I won't do it again, blah blah blah, can they just go now??” He looked at Karkat grumpily.

Karkat looked at the Strilondes, eyebrow raised. “Will you? I'd like to remind you that if you do, you're promising that you aren't going to try anything again without coming to me first.”

The Strilondes looked at Rose expectantly.

She narrowed her eyes, deep in thought, and then nodded once. “We will, Karkat. Come, we have preparations to make.” She made to leave, her siblings following after her, but Karkat stopped them before they reached the threshold of the living room..

“Oh _, no_ you _aren’t_. If you think you're going to trash their house and just walk away, you're wrong. You're all going to help clean this place up.”

Jade crossed her arms. “They're the ones who messed it up! Why do we have to help?”

John vigorously nodded his assent, their older siblings still watching the Strilondes warily.

“Because,” Karkat said in a tone of voice normally reserved for very stupid people and young children, “you're the ones who made them come out all this way, so you're going to help. Now hop to it.”

He was met by glares from hunters and demons alike.

Well, they weren’t trying to kill each other, so he counted it as a win.


	12. Chapter 12

Karkat winced as Kanaya unwrapped the bandages covering the burns on his back. “Fuck, shit, I swear to god, this is like the worst goddamn sunburn,” he grit his teeth as she pulled the sticky bandages from his back.

She clucked her tongue, looking at the blistered and bleeding skin critically. She supposed that it was all they could hope for, with the sheer amount of holy water and salt thrown on him. “Do stop complaining, Karkat, you seemed fine the other day when you went confront John on his eating habits.”

He hissed at she prodded a patch of inflamed skin, red and oozy. “You weren’t trying to rip off what’s left of my skin then!”  _And I took a fuckton of those painkillers you got me._

“Do try not to be such a wriggler about this, Karkat. I am merely checking for inflammation or unexpected developments from the wounds on your back.” She peered closely at a flap of torn skin, suspecting she would have to trim off the dead cells.

“Yeah, Carcino-jerk, don’t be such a wriggler about it!” Vriska shouted over the sounds of World of Warcraft from the living room, Terezi screeching in delight next to her as she hacked away in the digital fray.

Tavros rolled his eyes from his perch on the couch, cross legged as he played Digimon on his laptop. “Come on, Vriska, you know, as well, as I do that holy water burns, are very serious, so you should leave, him alone, I mean.”

“Uuuuuuuugh, fine, Tore-adorable.”

Karkat made gagging noises from his seat in the kitchen area, Gamzee snickering as he made cookies.

“Take it to the pile, Tavbro,” he chuckled, making Tavros’s ears flame.

“Oh, come on, like you, and Karkat aren’t, the worst offenders! Everyone remembers the kitchen incident!”

Karkat groaned into his hands, wincing as the motion pulled on his back. Damn it, where were those fucking pain meds? “We goddamn promised to never fucking talk about that again, fuckface. Let it die. The hoof-beast is dead, cease flagellating it. I fucking _get it already, dear sweet Signless.”_

Terezi sprang up, grinning as the victory cutscene played on the TV. “VICTORY!” She screeched, Vriska pumping her fists in the air. They high-fived, both ridiculously proud of themselves for defeating a video game level.

Four insistent knocks came from the door, echoed by an excited voice.

Kanaya raised her eyebrows at the smirking Scourge-Sprits, and rose from her position at Karkat's back to answer the door. She was greeted by an excitable Lalonde.

Roxy burst in, pointing at the game room, or, more specifically, the matesprits within. “You!!!! You're Law and Disorder!! Oh my God!” Her hair was disheveled (more than usual), marks on her wrists from where Dave and Dirk had only just been holding her back before being shaken off, and only had half of her makeup on. Strilondes weren't ones to waste time. Not when they could be doing the most outrageously ridiculous things that only just occurred to them. That'd be pure foolishness.

Terezi and Vriska executed a high-five x2 combo. “I was waiting for you to catch on, Haxxor!” Terezi crowed in delight.

Vriska's eyes lit up. “Oh man, we've goooooooot to have a showdown, we'll get so many subscriptions! I'll set up the camera!” She ran off, performing a GANK-NAB on Tavros as she dragged him off to help her with their YouTube channel set up. Goddamn professional gamers.

“Vriska, do this, yourself, I was playing Digimon!” He whined, stumbling along after her, back of his shirt clenched in her fist.

“No dice, Toreador! I need help, and you're available!”

They rounded the corner, complaints muffled, eventually cutting off.

Terezi and Roxy started jabbering away in the living room, gushing about each other's gaming prowess, and the rest of the Strilondes looked through the open door, varying degrees of guilt written on their faces.

“There is very little we could have done,” Rose supplied to the baffled Kanaya. “When she gets like this, it's best to let it play out.”

Kanaya looked at her. “Rose, when I said I would like to see you at a later date, this was not what I meant by it.” She paused. “Not to say it is not pleasant to see you, but I _would_ appreciate being informed about when you were coming, so that I could prepare the house for guests. It is a bit unseemly at the moment, my apologies.”

“Fuck you, Maryam, I've been busy cleaning up everyone else's messes, excuse me for not doing the dishes!”

“Oh, do be quiet, Karkat,” Kanaya said absently. She had gayer things to do. She moved out of the way of the door, inviting the Strilondes in. “Would you like to come in, Rose? I will do my utmost to make your time here pleasant, if you are not leaving. Your brothers too, of course.” Her skin was tinted a slight green.

Rose blushed, and smiled at her. "Your kindness is truly appreciated. I do apologize for our sudden interruption."

Dave muffled a snicker as he made his way inside. “Eh, it's nicer than our house,” he said, looking around.

“Yes, I remember, from what little I saw of it,” Kanaya said blithely. “You really ought to clean up those unsightly puppets. I am not ashamed to say I desecrated some unnecessarily during my time there.”

“She agrees with me,” Dave said, staring pointedly at Dirk.

“Indeed, they do transcend your obsession with the phallic, and have made a swan dive off the proverbial handle and straight into 'what the fuck’ territory at this point, Dirk.” Rose arched an eyebrow at him. “Also, I think they suck.”

Gamzee turned, facing the Strilondes. “Oh, man, the fucking puppets? Man they're some weird motherfucking shit, bro. You can have this shit back.” His miracle modus flashed, a purple smuppet hitting Dave in the face, a terrified shriek ensuing. “Also, red-bro is majorly freaked by 'em, just a heads up, bro-sis.”

“You know how I feel about mind-reading, Gamzee!” Karkat yelled from the dining room.

God, what had his life turned into.

Nothing he understood, anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

 

Dave stood uncomfortably in the front area of the house, watching as Roxy and the pointy one chattered about their YouTube accounts (???), Rose blatantly flirting with the glow-y one. The insane juggalo was in the kitchen, making cookies (and what the fuck was that about, he’d gone from lazy-bored to rage-insane in two seconds flat, and now he was making cookies, what even). Kit-Kat was craning his neck to look at his absolutely  _ wrecked  _ back, and Dave winced as he saw the full extent of the damage. In the middle of his back, amongst the blisters and burns, there was a thin, pale scar, looking years old. Karkat's left shoulder was in a worse shape, the scar thick and red, and he could see Dirk wince out of the corner of his eyes as the demon leveled an annoyed glare at the Striders. 

“Well, sit the fuck down, if you're going to barge into my fucking hive you might as well make yourselves comfortable.” He looked like he had swallowed a cartful of lemons, but went back to trying to glare his back into healing itself. 

Dirk jerked slightly, but sat at the table across from the demon, looking supremely uncomfortable, and immediately buried himself in his phone.

Dave sat next to his brother, trying to not flip his shit, mostly succeeding. 

The clown  _ fucking flash-stepped _ in front of them, setting down a pot of tea and a plate of cookies, and ruffled Shouty’s hair, before going back to his cookies. “They're orange spice,” he called from the kitchen, sending Dirk a lazy look and a smile, before fixing Dave with his own. “Sorry we don't have any apple juice, bro. Wasn't expecting any visitors, y’see.”

“Gamzee. The fucking mind-reading. How many shitting times do I have to fucking tell you.” Nubby looked resigned, glaring at the clown, before looking back at the Striders. “Have some fucking tea or something, having the two of you just staring at me like a goddamn exhibit is creepy.”

Hesitantly, Dirk reached for a cookie, visibly forcing himself to be polite, and took a small bite, before his eyebrows shot up. He looked at the cookie in disbelief, then at Dave.  _ “Dude,” _ he said, seeming shocked.

“Yeah, Gamzee's cookies have that effect on people,” Shouts McGee looked unconcerned, poking a blister and wincing. He glared at his back one last time, and then turned to look at the Striders, seeming unimpressed, then at the tea, which remained untouched. He rolled his eyes with an air of suffering about him, and poured out three cups of the steaming red liquid, a fruity scent in the steam. He pushed one to each of the Striders, and held his with two hands, before taking a sip, looking extremely done. “Strawberry kiwi,” he muttered under his breath. “I swear to Gog, we didn’t even buy that this week, fucking clown…” 

Dave reached out, holding the cup warily, and took a sip, expecting a blend of tea, strawberry, and kiwi. Instead, he nearly spat it out as he drank boiled Strawberry-Kiwi Faygo, the artificial, sugary taste seeming to go straight for his taste buds. He coughed in surprise, barely swallowing in time to prevent a spray of Faygo. 

The juggalo looked over from the kitchen where he was rolling out cookie dough, hooded eyes amused. “Not to your liking, bro? I got more, if’n you’d be wanting it.” 

Nubs looked completely unsurprised. “We didn’t even buy Strawberry-Kiwi this week, what in the hellacious fuck?” His tone was more fond than anything, which made sense, from what Dave understood of their “““quardant””” thingys, but. Really? Boiled Faygo? 

Dave couldn’t figure this guy out.

Apparently this was a pretty regular thing, as Shouts just continued drinking the steaming soda, so Dave plastered on his game face.

“Nah, just thought you were more of a Red Pop type, you know? Me, I’m just waiting for the day they come out with an apple one, nectar of the gods right there, taking soda and apple juice both to a whole new level, be fucking amazing-”

“Oh my Gog, do you never shut up? It can’t possibly be that hard, you just close your face gash, fucking hell.” Karkat banged his head on the table, letting out a long groan. One red eye peeked out from his tangled hair in a glare. “And we don't drink Red Pop in this hive, so shut it. If you can't figure out why, I can't help you,” he muttered, looking shiftily at the clown. His red eyes turned back to the Striders. “Why are you even here? Your human sisters have an explanation, at the least, but what are you *doing* here?”

The Striders looked at each other, then shrugged in unison.

“Can't just leave our sisters here to your demonic wiles, Nubs,” Dave said, earning a small hiss.

“Be straight up unconscionable,” Dirk added.

Karkat glared. “So basically, your pale pasty asses couldn't be bothered to leave, instead deciding to make my life just that little bit more miserable. Fan-fucking-tastic. While you're at it, why don't you just kick me in the bonebulge and call it a day?”

Dave opened his mouth, about to ask what a “bonebulge” was, when Dirk sent him a quelling look from behind his anime shades. He reconsidered. “I dunno, dude,  sounds kinda rude, after the week you've been having, it’d be against the Strider code, bro.” 

Karkat narrowed his eyes at him. “If you start slant rhyming, I *cannot* be held accountable for my actions, do you hear me, Strider? *Can _ * *not _ *.”

Rose looked over from where she was snark-flirting with Kanaya. “I would advise you against that course of action, brother dear, if only to spare our ear drums.” She winked at Kanaya. “It’d be a shame if I was unable to hear your voice, after all.”

Kanaya blushed, and they resumed flirting.

Karkat made quiet gagging noises, and Gamzee patted his head as he pulled out a chair, sitting down loose-limbed as he brushed flour off on his purple apron. “None of that now, pabe,” he said bumping shoulders. “Ain't our business who Kan-sis gets her courtship on with.” He looked at the Striders. “No matter how much of an inadvisable choice they may be.”

“Stop being an asshole,” Karkat grumbled into Gamzee’s shoulder where he had buried his face. Dave winced as he saw a fuller extent of the damage done to his back. “We get it, you hate them and are determined to be as awful as gogdamn possible to get them to leave. You’re fucking terrible at being passive aggressive, you know that, right?” He pulled back to glare. “Leave it to the fucking professionals, look, I even convinced them to actually fucking drink it.” He tipped his mug to show them it was still full, apparently having only faked drinking it.

Dirk’s eye was twitching behind his anime shades. He dragged his shades down his face, hooking them into his collar as he leaned forward on the table, knuckles white. “ _ Are you saying,”  _ he said with tightly restrained fury.  _ “Are you telling me that I drank five cups of scalding hot Strawberry-Kiwi Faygo, trying to be polite, only for you to reveal it was just a fucking *prank*? A funny little ‘jape’? A joke? Tell me you’re shitting me right now, before I fly right the  _ fuck  _ off the handle.” _

Dave had never seen his brother lose his cool so thoroughly. “Jesus Christ, bro, it’s not that big of a deal, he was just-”

Dirk fixed him with a furious orange glare.  _ “This is the worst thing that has  _ ever  _ happened to me, Dave.” _ He held his brother’s face in his hands, holding his face close as he squished his cheeks.  _ “The. Worst. Ever.” _

Karkat couldn’t handle it any more. He snorted, turning into a full on laugh, until he was wheezing and clutching his stomach in a full body attack of mirth. Pinkish-red tears were streaming down his face as he giggled uncontrollably, wincing occasionally as the spasms pulled on his back, before erupting into laughter again.

Gamzee gave him a pleased, fangy grin. “Told you it'd be funny as all motherfuck,” he said smugly. His smile at the Striders had more fangs to it. “Thought you’d’ve learned to take a joke or two, what with your dealings with the trickster-sibs you tried fighting.”

Dave bristled at 'tried’. He'd been doing perfectly well, thank you very fuckin’ much, and he didn't need some asshole in shitty face paint bitching at him, especially since he hadn't even been there. Dick.

Gamzee narrowed his eyes.  _ “Shut your heretic mouth about my paint, motherfucker, ‘fore I shut it for you.”  _ His sclera deepened to orange.

Karkat jolted up from where he had leaned on Gamzee while riding out the last of his giggles, eyes sharp.  _ “Don’t  _ diss his paint, Strider, or I’ll shove a sickle up your ass myself. Make fun of his religion and I will  _ end  _ you, you hear me?”

Dave put his hands up, alarmed. “Fuck, sorry dude, didn’t mean to step on any toes, didn’t know it was part of your religion or whatever, not like we have any human equivalent, how was I supposed-”

“Quit while you are ahead, brother dear!” Rose called from the kitchen area, turning back to Kanaya with a smirk and elegantly curling a strand of hair around her finger.

Dirk sent the lesson home with a stamp on his foot, mask back in place and shades in place as he pushed the half-full cup of Faygo away from himself. “Fantastic. I’ve been drinking boiled soda for half an hour so my little sister can flirt with a demon and my twin can try to get more subscribers by having a showdown with other professional gamers, who are  _ also _ demons. And my brother is being a religiously insensitive prick to the guy who broke my arm in five seconds flat.” His face was one of long suffering. He turned his head towards Roxy, where the 3x L33T G4M3R SH8WD8WN was going down between her and the Scourge-sprits. “Roxy, what has my life turned into?”

She cackled to rival Terezi over the noise of the game. “A party, Dirky! The coolest party ever!”

Dirk looked like he wanted to cry.


	14. Chapter 14

Dave took another sip of the boiled Faygo blankly. Couldn't let the clown win, of course. Refusing his hospitality would be straight up against the Strider code. 

Holy  _ shit _ had Dirk lost his cool though. Just about the only time he'd seen him lose his cool that bad… well, at least Bro wasn't there to see it; he'd probably have beat his ass to a pulp, showing that much emotion. 

Maybe Rose was right about the English demon getting to him…

Whatever. If Dirk was going to pretend it wasn't a problem, he wasn't going to stop him. Dave took another sip of the shitty soda, making sure to stay completely impassive. He looked back over at Nubscreech, who was back to snuggling Jugga-clown, still not wearing a shirt, and Gog _ damn _ was this guy shredded. The muscle structure was just plain _ wrong _ to be human, even easier for him to see without the glamour to confuse him. There were abs alright, but in rows of three, four columns, but even with the utter strangeness of it he could see the work put into them, in the tightness of the skin around them, the way they looked as tough as steel… 

The Jugga-clown raised an eyebrow at him, and Dave flushed, remembering that freaky mind-reading powers were still a thing.

_ Oh my Gog I've been perving on his boyfriend right in front of him this is the worst thing to ever happen to me Dirk was right, oh my Gog- _

“Gamzee, I can tell when you're using your stupid chucklevoodoos, stop it already.” Kit-Kat patted at his face softly, careful with the paint, and made a weird crooning chirr-noise.

Little-Big Horn gagged from where he was now floating, in the corner of the living room, to the left of the intense 3x L337 G4M3R SH8WD8WN going on in front of the TV. “This, is like the, kitchen incident all over, again, Karkat!” He yelled, still focusing on his Digimon game. 

“Get fucked, Tavros!” Krabby-kat yelled back.

“SHUT IT, YOU TWO!” The Scourge-sprits yelled in unison.

“FUCK OFF!” Karkalicious yelled at them. He turned back to the table, disgust all over his face. “Why. Why did they have to be my Hive. Why me.” He muttered into Jugga-clown's shoulder, who kissed the top of a horn.

Dave was getting the distinctive feeling that he shouldn't be seeing something that intimate.

The Jugga-clown shook his head at at him slowly in a ‘no, you really shouldn’t’ gesture.

“What did I *just* say about mind-reading?” Karkles snaps.

Jugga-clown chirped at him, making him blush scarlet.

“Oh, my Gog, what are you, exhibitionists?!?!” Little-Big horn yelled, nearly dropping his computer.

“FUCK OFF!” Krabby yelled. 

“We’re not, in Alternia, anymore, you have no excuse!” he yelled back.

“Like you and Vriska aren’t worse!”

“SHUT UP!” the Scourge-sprits chorused.

Kitty-Kat banged his head on the table a few times.

Jugga-clown scritched his head.

Cat-bus looked back up. “Ugh. Are you just going to sit there like creeps or something? Fucking weirdos.”

Dave swallowed. “Geez, Karks, no need to be so… _ crabby. _ ” He snickered, and won a trio of unimpressed looks.

“Wow,” Car-Cat says, slow clapping sarcastically. “I’ve never heard that one before. Right up there with jokes about my height and my hair.”

“Don’t forget your horns, Carcino-jerk!” Vriska called. 

“Fuck off!”

“That’s my job, Karkles!” Terezi yelled.

McShouty buried his face in his hands, peeking through them to look at Dave. “Stop looking at my abs, A), B), stop looking at my back and the scars you gave me, and  _ C), _ either stop calling me dumb nicknames in your head or  _ quiet the fuck down!” _

Dave blinked, then looked over at Dirk, who was giving him an unimpressed, slightly embarrassed, but mostly disapproving, Look™.

“Wow, Dirk,” he said in a monotone, face completely blank. “Really, perving on the guy who’s boyfriend broke your everything in five seconds flat? You just love  to live life on the edge, don’t you? Honestly, this is worse than the English fiasco, I can’t believe you’re going down this road again, I’m so disappointed in you-”

Karkat stood, slamming his hands on the table in anger. “That’s it! Nope! Fuuuuuuuuck this, get the  _ fuck  _ out! Pack it up Kanaya, flirting’s over, your dumb flush-interest is going right the fuck now, with her idiotic human relations in tow! Tolerable pink human, up and fucking at ‘em, or whatever means ‘get out of here right now’! Gamzee, help me out here!” His red eyes were blazing in fury.

Tavros sighed in relief, a breeze sweeping through the hive. “Oh thank, Gog, that guy’s, face, was hurting my oculars.”

Dirk and Dave both turned to look at him in unison. 

Tavros looked over, unimpressed. “Both of, uh, you.”

Gamzee appeared at the Striders’ backs, making their skin crawl. “You heard him, bros.  _ Out.”  _ H is breath whispered across their necks, and they shivered.

Rose tittered behind a palm, handing over a slip of paper to the Jadeblooded rainbow drinker, winking at her as she herded her siblings out the door. “Thank you for having us, Karkat,” she said airily, breezing out behind the rest of the Strilondes.

Karkat flipped off the closing door.


	15. Chapter 15

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]

 

CG: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET ADDED TO MY CHUMPROLL?

TG: wow no hello

TG: just going straight into yelling ok i can roll with that i guess

TG: also what the fuck is a chumproll

CG: WHAT A FUCKING SPECTACULAR EXAMPLE OF NOT ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTION, ASSHOLE. NOW WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

TG: yo im dave im 23 and i legitimately just asked rose to ask kanaya for your number

CG: WAIT. DAVE?

TG: yeah

CG: THE HUNTER?

TG: yeah

CG: I’M GOING TO KILL HER.

TG: wait what

TG: no dont

TG: oh my gog rose is going to kill me for getting her girlfriend killed

TG: oh shit

TG: oh shit oh shit oh shit

CG: NOT LITERALLY, IDIOT. I JUST GOT BACK FROM YELLING AT HER.

CG: SHE IS NOT REPENTANT.

TG: ahahaha

TG: i knew she was my favorite for a reason

TG: except for you

CG: WHAT.

TG: oh shit

TG: no homo

CG: WHAT IS “HOMO”?

TG: holy shit

TG: thats the funniest thing ive ever heard get said

CG: ARE YOU TEXAN???

TG: dude we are literally in texas

CG: I THOUGHT YOUR PEOPLE TRAVELED AROUND THE COUNTRY OR SOMETHING.

TG: “my people”?

CG: YOU KNOW, HUNTERS? YOU CAN’T BE *THAT* OBTUSE.

TG: oh never mind then

CG: WHAT DID YOU THINK I MEANT?

TG: you really have no idea what goes on in the human world do you?

CG: MY GLAMOUR MAKES PEOPLE SEE ME AS WHAT IT’S EASIEST FOR THEM TO SWALLOW, IF THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION?

TG: yeah no it really does

CG: ...I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT BY THE FUCKING WAY.

TG: ok so you know how you guys have your homospecter

CG: HEMOSPECTRUM.

TG: yeah that thing

TG: humans have that sort of thing too

TG: except we only have one blood color so we use skin tone instead

TG: and my skin

TG: well actually im kinda pale but that also factors into this

TG: bear with me here

CG: YOU’RE MAKING NO SENSE RIGHT NOW. BUT OK.

TG: so you know how some humans are darker than others?

CG: YEAH, AND?

TG: so trolls think the cooler the color of your blood is the better, right?

CG: YOUR CLASS/ASPECT IS PART OF IT TOO, BUT YEAH.

TG: so humans for a while had this thing where if you had really dark skin you could be really mistreated and enslaved or killed ir stuff

CG: LIKE A RUSTBLOOD? THAT SOUNDS LIKE A RUSTBLOOD.

TG: yeah exactly

TG: so i come from a family of human rustbloods

TG: but i’m even weirder

TG: i have this condition where my skin pigment is all wrong so i look like someone dumped a bottle of bleach on a rule 63 roxy

CG: WHAT THE HELL IS “RULE 63”?

TG: yanno

TG: i’m a boy and she’s a girl and stuff

CG: HUH.

TG: anyway there’s a lot of stigma and shit about us and even though you can’t LEGALLY discriminate against us it still totally happens

CG: HUMANS ARE WEIRD.

TG: yeah true tbh

TG: tbh means to be honest btw

CG: I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, DUMBASS.

TG: btw means

TG: oh

TG: never mind then

TG: anyway it’s been real but dinners in like five minutes so i gtg

TG: see you

 

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

 

CG: WHAT THE FUCK

 

“Kanaya, you traitor!” Karkat yelled from the living room.

“So you’ve mentioned!” she yelled back from her sewing room.

Gamzee cracked open an eye from where he’d been resting his head in Karkat's lap, tilting his head back to bare a long expanse of grey neck as his horns pushed against the couch cushions. “Have a good motherfucking chat, bro?” he asked.

Karkat groaned, flopping hard against the cushions at his back.

“Yeah, thought so,” he snorted.

“Ugh,” Karkat said. He looked up. “HEY, IS ANYONE ELSE GETTING HUNGRY?” he yelled to the general hive.

“Yeah!”

“YES!!!!!!!!”

“YEAH!”

“Yes.”

“Hell motherfucking yes, bro.”

“Great, which clubs have we NOT gotten kicked out of yet?” he asked to the hive general.

There was silence for a moment.

“Well, fuck,” came from Kanaya’s sewing room.

“Uuuuuuuuuuugghhh,” Karkat said again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate formatting i #ate forma


	16. Chapter 16

“Uuuuuuuuuuugghhh,” Karkat said.

“There there, pabe.”

_ “Uuuuuuuuuuugghhh.” _

“Shoosh. He's only in town a few days, pabe. You'll get through it, right as miracles.”

“That's not the saying and  _ you know that _ , asshole.”

“Honk.”

“Karkat, honestly, there is no need to be so dramatic, I and my Hive are perfectly capable of staying out of your way for a few days. Now will you  _ please _ let us in already?” Kankri’s voice was muffled from behind the door, but Karkat could practically _ feel _ it grating on his nerves already.

“Fucking fine! But this is my house, so it's my fucking rules, ok!” He yelled, stomping over and flinging open the door. 

“Yes, I am willing to respect your boundaries and decisions while staying in your place of dwelling, hatchmate,” Kankri said, and his eyes glowed red a moment.

“Gog, you are so fucking formal, for fuck’s sake,” Karkat grumbled, walking away to let him and his Hive in.

“HEY IDIOTS, OUR HATCHMATES ARE HERE!” he yelled, to mixed reactions.

“YEET!” Terezi yelled, scrambling out and tackling Latula in a higher. “Long time no see, skater grrrl!”

“Oh, hi, Rufioh,” Tavros said, floating out and waving hello.

“Hello, Porrim,” Kanaya said, coming out from her room.

“Noooooooo!” Vriska yelled. “Don't fucking let her in, fucking hell!”

“Vriska, there is no need to be so rude, nor for your profan-”

“My hive, my rules, you don't get to scold us for profanity, Kankri,” Karkat snapped, already irritated.

“Fine,” he said back, equally irritated. “But there is no need to be rude.”

“Fuck off!” Vriska yelled back. “I'm not coming out, I can't deal with Windfang right now!”

Aranea sniffed. “Uncouth as ever, I see,” she sniped back.

It was already a shitshow, and it wasn’t even five minutes in.

And then Mituna walked in.

Karkat froze a moment, before realizing which Captor it is. 

“Oh,” Tavros said coldly.  _ “You're _ here.”

“I've gotta go,” Terezi said suddenly. “Criminals to execute and all. Bye.” She fled.

Kanaya collected herself, forced a smile, and waved. “Good to see you well,” she said. “It is nice to see you. I'm very glad. Wonderful.” She stopped digging her own hole, and excused herself and Porrim to her room.

Tavros grabbed Rufioh’s hand, and Windy-thinged away, probably to his room.

“I am going to speak to my hatchmate,” Aranea said. “Excuse me.”

She made a hasty retreat, leaving the Vantas’, the Makaras, and Mituna alone in the living room.

“It's…” Karkat stopped. “Cool seeing you, Mituna. Why are you even here, Kankri?” he turned his attention back on Kankri, both needing a distraction and also genuinely curious.

Kankri fidgeted. “We may have attracted the attention of some particularly determined hunters,” he said guiltily.  _ “Very _ determined.”

“Why.” Karkat say flatly. 

“I may or may not have fed on one of their members, and let my glamour slip. And I very nearly took too much,” he said softly, in a quietly horrified tone of voice, shame written into his hunched frame as he made himself smaller.

Karkat smacked a hand over his face.  _ “Kankri.” _

He looked at Karkat miserably. “I should have  _ listened _ , I should have just let Porrim bring me some herself but you  _ know _ how her advances make me uncomfortable, and there is no shame in relying on others but I find it distasteful-”

“Kankri. Holy shit, shut up, it's fine, ok?” Karkat sighed. “I'm almost healed from the last ones, I'll be up to handling it soon, ok? Don't worry about it. Asshole.”

Kankri's eyes were wide. “Last ones? What do you mean by that? ‘Almost healed’?” His eyes flamed. “They  _ hurt  _ you? Are you alright? Are they  _ dead  _ yet-”

Karkat tugged at the bond between him and his hatchmate. “Calm your shit, Kankri,” he snapped. “Gamzee scared them off, so we don't have to worry about them anymore. And we've got a truce with some other hunters in the area, so none of us are in any danger, ok? Jegus fuck.” He let the bond go slack again, no longer needing Kankri's full attention.

Kankri crossed his arms. “If you say so,” he said prissily. “But I do not approve of a truce with hunters of any sort. They are ruthless, and are probably planning to double-cross you.”

Karkat waved him off. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You're not getting my bed, I have some sleeping bags somewhere around here, you can stay in the living room.” He looked at Mituna, grimacing. “You can take Sollux's old room, if you want. We haven't been using it.”

Mituna nodded, shuffling off, Kurloz throwing a salute at Karkat and walking after his moirail.

Karkat bit back a sigh, putting his head in his hands. “This is such a fucking shitshow,” he groused.

Kankri grimaced, and nodded. “It truly is unfortunate.”


	17. Chapter 17

It didn’t truly go to shit until the next day.

_ That _ was a fucking disaster.

Karkat oozed out of his room, still in his fuzzy grey pajamas, and glared blearily at the crowded kitchen, filled with hungry trolls in various states of disarray, before locking his gaze on the coffee machine, ignoring the fuckery around him and making a beeline to it.

Vriska noticed him coming over, and grabbed his big mug from the cabinet, passing it down to his grabby hands. “Good morning to you too, fearless leader,” she snarked, earning a tired grumble, a mutter of, “-damn right-”, and a middle finger.

Kurloz was making eggs, waving as he scrambled some in a bowl, others cooking sunny-side up on the frying pan.

Latula tossed a peace sign from where she was sitting at the head of the table. “Kurlz is making breakfasts, Shouts,” she grinned, feet up on the table.

Karkat swatted them off as he poured half the pitcher of coffee into his mug. “You’re in my seat,” he growled, glaring at her.

She hopped up. “Sorry, Nubz! Didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, dogg!”

“Why do you have to be so awake in the morning…” he groused, sipping at his coffee.

“Just an early bird!” she chirped.

He hissed half-heartedly, taking his seat.

Vriska took a plate of pancakes from the warming drawer, plunking them on the table just after the eggs. “HEY ASSHOLES, BREAKFAST’S READY!!!!!!!!” she yelled, to loud groans of annoyance.

“There’s no need to yell, it could be be very triggering to some people, you need to be more considerate, Vriska,” Kankri mumbled sleepily as he shuffled out of the living room.

Tavros and Rufioh came out of the weight room. “Oh, hey, guys,” he said, minding his horns as he gave Vriska a peck on the cheek and grabbed a pancake. “I’m going, to shower, be out in five. Save, some eggs for, me!”

“Got it, Toreadorable!” Vriska called after him, and plunked into the chair next to Kurloz as she sipped her tea.

Rufioh poured a cup of coffee for himself, and sat, pulling out a seat and grabbing a plate. “Gog, I’m starving,” he said, forking eggs and pancakes onto his plate.

Karkat looked at him in open disgust. “Everybody’s a fucking morning person around here, what are you people even doing in my hive? Fuck’s sake- Kankri, no, whatever you were about to say about triggers or whatever, I don’t want to hear it.”

Kankri lowered his finger, relaxing from his lecturing pose and pouting. “You don’t even know-”

“Shush. No. Stop, desist, cease this, I could go on-”

“Shush yourself, huh, pabe?” Gamzee nestled his head on top of Karkat’s, humming in the back of his throat.

“Bluh.”

“Leave room for Jegus!” Terezi whipped her cane in the middle of them, pushing Gamzee back with little resistance from the amused purpleblood.

Karkat flipped her off without looking.

“Sup, invertebro,” Gamzee waved at Kurloz, who waved back.

**-NOT MUCH-** Kurloz replied.

“Nope!” Karkat cried, whipping around to point accusingly at them. “Not in my hive! I am not having a Bard and a Prince of Rage using chucklevoodoos together ANYWHERE near my hive for  _ non-emergency _ reasons!” 

Kurloz shrugged.  _ Ok,  _ he signed, making the ‘o’ sign and a ‘k’ sign in his flat palm.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Karkat grumbled, going back to his coffee.

“Eat some real food, you two, not just your shitty soda!” He yelled, not looking back.

_ Feisty as ever I see,  _ Kurloz signed to Gamzee.

He nodded, chuckling.  _ Sure is,  _ Gamzee signed back.

Aranea came out of the second bathroom, smoothing down her skirt and smiling. “Hello, all,” she said. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

Karkat grumbled under his breath.

Porrim slouched to the teapot, pouring a cup and sucking it down.

“I see that being a night owl is a Maryam trait,” Vriska called.

“Dear, feel free to go pail yourself with a metal rod,” Porrim said back sweetly.

Karkat silently offered a high-five, still drinking his coffee, and she returned it weakly.

Everything was going *fucking* swimmingly, for two hives in the same space.

And the Mituna woke up.

He floated sleepily out of Sollux’s old room, psionics buzzing around him to hold him aloft, and he drifted through the air towards the teapot, mumbling what might have been ’good morning’ as he went.

Terezi stood from her seat, nearly knocking over her chair. “Thanks for breakfast, Kurloz!” she said, chipper as ever. “Delicious as always!” She half-walked, half-ran to her room, not even bothering with her cane. 

Karkat sighed. “Morning, Mituna,” he said tiredly. “Sleep ok?”

“Yeah,” Mituna said quietly. “Just great.” Kurloz gave him a plate, and he started shuffling to Sollux’s room. “I’m going to eat in his room,” he said. “Stuff to do, you know?”

Karkat slammed his head on the table.  _ “Uuuuuuuuuuugghhh.” _

“Cheers, I’ll drink to that, bro,” Vriska said snippily.

  
  


\------------------------------------------------------------

  
  


Mituna sat on his hatchmate’s bed, head in his hands and plate on the dusty desk, nothing changed from that day two sweeps ago. The day his hatchmate turned on them. The day his hatchmate burned every bridge, snapped every bond, left Karkat feeling a gaping emptiness, Terezi a hollow feeling, Vriska a burning hot anger, Kanaya an endless thirst, Gamzee an unshakeable rage, Tavros a bitter sense of betrayal. The day Mituna took all of that into himself, took that which would have spelled their Hive’s doom, as penance or self-harm, he still couldn’t tell.

But he failed them, didn’t he? He couldn’t see where his hatchmate was going, couldn’t see that he was going to betray them, couldn’t take all of it away. Only enough to save them from destruction.

He couldn’t even atone properly.

Kurloz stiltwalked in, shutting the door quietly, and stiltwalked to his moirail’s side, rubbing his back, before bringing his hands back to sign.  _ It’s not your fault,  _ he signed.  _ You weren’t the one who betrayed them. Terezi-  _ hands poking straight up on his head and a wide grin  _ -will be fine. She knows it wasn’t you, and she doesn’t want to take it out on you. That’s why she stays away. You know that. _

Mituna out his head in his hands. “She hates me,” he said miserably. “Just seeing me is like a slap in the face, reminding her of what she lost. I’m the worst, I shouldn’t have come here, I could have stayed in a hotel or something-”

Kurloz grabbed his hands, knocking his head against Mituna’s lightly.  _ None of that now,  _ he signed, letting go of his moirail’s hands.  _ You don’t deserve this. You did all you could, took away their destruction. Stop punishing yourself. _

Mituna curled up, lying on his traitor hatchmate’s bed, and cried silently as his moirail traced diamonds into his back.

His pancakes grew cold.

Eventually, he slept.

  
  


\------------------------------

  
  


Karkat knocked on the door to Sollux’s old room, not looking at it directly. “HEY, MITUNA, IT’S DINNER TIME, WE’VE GOT A CLUB PICKED OUT AND EVERYTHING IN THE NEXT TOWN OVER, HURRY UP AND GET DRESSED!” He tapped his foot impatiently, picking at the shirt Kanaya had made him, still not used to wearing his color even after three sweeps in the human realm. “MITUNA!” He yelled again. “IF YOU AREN’T OUT IN THE NEXT TEN SECONDS WE’RE LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!” 

Kurloz gently nudged Karkat out off the way, tapping on the door “.... . -.-- --..-- / -.-. --- -- . / --- -. / --- ..- - --..-- / .-- . / -.-. .- -. / .... .- ...- . / ... --- -- . / ..-. ..- -. --..-- / -.-- . .- .... ..--.. / --. . - / ... --- -- . / -. ..- - .-. .. - .. --- -. / .. -. / -.-- --- ..- --..-- / -.-- --- ..- .----. .-.. .-.. / ..-. . . .-.. / -... . - - . .-. .-.-.-”

Karkat tapped his foot. “Yep, I’m going in there,” he said dryly. “YOU BETTER BE DECENT!” was his only warning, before he opened the door.

The room was empty.

“Oh, for FUCK’S SAKE!” He yelled. He turned towards the living room. “HE’S GONE!”

“I’ll kill him myself if he’s turned traitor!”

“FUCK!”

“CAPTOR!”

“Bitch!”

“Motherfuck!”

“I knew it! I fucking knew it!”

“Shit!”

“Oh dear.”

“I’m getting my chainsaw.”

“Shiiiiit...”

Terezi swallowed hard, and walked back to her room. “You guys can deal with this, I’ll just… hold down the fort, ok? Great…” the door closed behind her, locking shut after a moment.

Vriska hissed angrily. She turned on Kankri. “You! You’re a Seer, tell me where he is!”

“Tavros,” Karkat snapped.

He nodded, and thumbed Vriska’s horn decisively, tugging her away to his room by the arm as she blinked in momentary confusion.

Karkat looked at the rest of them. “Alright, this is how it’s going to go: Kankri, tell me where he is, and I’m going to bring Kanaya, Aranea, Gamzee, and Rufioh with me. Kurloz, Latula, you’re going to stay here and not make trouble. Porrim, you’ll stay here for defense. Kankri, if it comes down to it, I *need* you to fight back, ok? You said it yourself, these guys won’t care about you being a pacifist.”

Kankri nodded. “Ok.”

“Everyone got it? Great. Get into clothes that won’t get ruined. Be back here in 15 minutes, or else.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were walking out the door, for very different reasons than before. 

“This is such a fucking shitshow,” Karkat said sourly.

“Yeah… yeah, it really is, dude…” Rufioh said.

“Well,” Karkat said as he drove towards the apartment building Kankri had traced their bond to. “This is going to fucking suck.”

  
  


\----------------------------------------

  
  


Mituna crossed his arms as he waited in the elevator. This was a stupid idea, they’d find out he was gone, they wouldn’t understand, they’d think… but he had to do this.

He had to talk to Sollux.

The doors slid open, and he walked down the hall. 1033, 1031, 1029, 1027. 

1025.

He knocked on the door.

The door opened.

“Hey, bro,” Mituna said. “Gonna let me in?”

Sollux paled.  _ “Thit!”  _ he tried to slam the door, but Mituna kept it open with psionics.

“You’re not getting out of this conversation, bro,” he said, walking in and closing the door behind him.

Sollux backed up until he hit the wall. “G-g-get out of my ap-p-partment,” he stuttered. “Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out-”

“No! We have to talk about what you did!” Mituna yelled, walking over angrily. “You hurt them and I want to know why! Why would you  betray your hive? Why would you hurt your moirail? Why? Why would you do this?” He snarled, psionics crackling.  _ “This isn’t what Psii would have wanted for us!” _ he yelled.

Sollux threw a throwing star at him and bolted.

Mituna stopped it in the air and grabbed him by the shoulder. “What the hell is going on with you? Answer me! I deserve to know, you’re supposed to be my hatchmate!”

Sollux was shaking like a leaf. “I-I-I-I-”

Karkat burst in, sickles out. “WHAT IN THE HELLACIOUS FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?” He yelled. He took in the scene, Mituna holding an incoherent and near-tears Sollux by the shoulder, a throwing star on the floor, Mituna’s face twisted in the anger of someone wronged. He recaptchalogued his sickles. “You,” he said, pointing accusingly at Mituna, “are coming with me  _ *right*  _ the  _ *fuck* _ now.” He stomped over angrily, backhanded Mituna, pushed Sollux out of the way, and grabbed Mituna by a fistful of messy black hair, dragging him behind himself as he walked away. “Horrible seeing you, Sollux!” he called nastily as he slammed the door shut. Ignoring the sounds of terrified sobbing from behind the door, he stormed over to the elevator, others trailing after them in various states of surprise. He didn’t talk as he walked over the elevator, poking the down button with more force than necessary and tapping his foot in increasing speed and impatience until the doors dinged open, a few startled passengers taking one look at the assembled group before filing out. Karkat practically threw Mituna into the cab, pointing the others to the stairway, and then smacked him again as the doors closed.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT!” he yelled. “HOW WAS THAT GOING TO FUCKING HELP? I *TOLD* YOU THAT GAMZEE SCARED HIM THE FUCK OFF, ALL YOU’VE DONE IS DELAY DINNER AND SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF US ALL! WE THOUGHT-” He stopped. “We can’t lose another fucking Hivemate. We were fucking scared, you grubshitter.”

“I’m sorry,” Mituna said softly. “I just wanted answers.”

Karkat snarled outright at that.  _ “You wanted  _ **_answers?”_ ** He shoved Mituna.  _ “*You* wanted answers? _ WHAT ABOUT US?!?!?! DON’T YOU THINK *WE* WANT ANSWERS? THAT *WE* FEEL BETRAYED?  _ How fucking dare you, bringing hunters here and then trying to start shit up with the ones already here.  _ WHAT ABOUT TEREZI, HUH? DID YOU *EVER* THINK OF THAT, WISE GUY?” 

Mituna cowered. “I’m sorry.”

“FUCK YOUR SORRY!” Karkat bared his teeth, hands in claws, and then, very deliberately, relaxed them, and took three step back. “When I said it was handled,” he said testily, “I meant that it was *handled*. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not in the best way, maybe not even in an ok way, but handled. You stay on my turf, you follow my rules, and you *listen* to me when I say things. Understood?” 

Mituna nodded.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Karkat said. They stood in silence for a few minutes, before  the doors dinged open onto the lobby, and they walked to the car, where their Hivemates waited. 

“What a fucking shitshow,” Karkat growled, tossing Gamzee the keys and getting in the passenger side. 

  
  


\---------

  
  


“WE’RE BACK!” Karkat yelled, practically slamming open the door. “HE WAS NOT, IN FUCKING FACT, A TRAITOR, AND INSTEAD JUST A *FUCKING* *IDIOT*!”

Terezi came out of her room, shades firmly in place and hair rumpled like she’d just gotten out of bed, and stormed over to Mituna. Drawing back her cane, she brought it down with a CRACK! on his head, and began whacking his shins and forearms as he brought them up to shield himself.

“You idiot! You fucking idiot! You!” CRACK! onto his arms. “FUCKING!” WHAP! onto his head. “IIIIIIIIDIIIIIIIIIIIIOT!” She swept his legs out from under him, pinning him the floor with her cane as he tried to get up. She leaned in close to his face. “You *stupid* FUCKING  _ *WEENIE*!”  _ She hissed. “Do you know what I was thinking?!?! Do you?” She stood up straight and lifted her cane off him, before bringing it back down with bruising force. “I was thinking, ‘how could I not see this coming’! Not even See, fuck Seer powers, but how could I not tell where yet *another* Captor was going!” She spat in his face. “FUCK you, Mituna, you *infuriating* trash fire!” She stalked off as he struggled to his feet.

Latula stomped over. “*Not* cool, Mit. I’m going to fucking withhold makeouts for this, mark my words.”

Kurloz stiltwalked in front of him as Latula walked away, and slapped Mituna, opened palmed.  _ How motherfucking could you,  _ he signed.  _ We’re moirails, you could have gotten motherfucking hurt! We’re supposed to be in this together! Dhiotuwghoruw!  _ He flipped through signs quickly, a visual keysmash of anger.

Mituna cowered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” 

Kurloz papped him, hard, and dragged him off to the room.

Karkat slumped in exhaustion. “Let’s go to the club tomorrow, ok?” he asked. “I’m too tired for this shit.”

The hive general muttered agreement and dispersed, going to their own rooms or spots.

Karkat didn’t even have to ask, Gamzee coming in with him and shutting the door as Karkat burrowed straight into his bed, not even bothering to change into pajamas as he pulled the covers over his head completely. Gamzee changed into a pair of his pajamas that had taken up residence in Karkat’s sock drawer, and slid under the covers, spooning his moirail, relaxing from the heat. 

“Shoosh,” he said, tangling their legs together. “Be at peace, invertebro.”

Karkat chittered tiredly.


	18. Chapter 18

 

“Alright,” Karkat said tiredly, “take two, people. Everyone ready to go? Got your clothes on, shirt, socks, shoes, everything else necessary to seem like a normal fucking member of society?”

A ragged response to the tune of “yes” came from the other twelve trolls, and Karkat rubbed his temples. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Just peachy. Alright, Vriska, we’re taking the Sc- the  _ truck-”  _

“You know that Scourge-mobile is more fun to say!” Terezi screeched.

“-shut up Terezi, we’re taking the truck, and neither of you are driving because not only are you some degree of sightless, you’re also both insane, fuck you, so I guess I’m up because I’m the only one who’s horns will fit. Latula, you’re up front with me, Kankri, Mituna, Aranea, you’re in the back, and the rest of you are in the truck bed. I want exactly *no* backseat driving, tomfoolery, horseplay, or makeouts in *any* section of the truck, you hear that?”

“Controoooooool freak!” Vriska yelled. “What’s the  _ worst  _ that could happen if you didn’t micromanage every piece of this, huh, Carcino?”

“I’m fucking ecstatic you asked, Vriska,” Karkat said dryly. “Here, I’ll show you.” Instead of the expected double middle fingers, he decaptchalogued a thick binder, and took out a sheaf of paper. “Charges filed against one Vriska Serket:” he read. “Burglary, breaking and entry, disturbance of the peace, thievery, threatening a police officer, -”

“I get it already!” she yelled back, flushing blue.

He looked at her with a dispassionate grimace. “I have more. For ALL of you, yes you too, Kanaya, *and* you, Tavros, don’t go looking like smug shitheads. So yes, I *do*, in-fucking-fact, have to micromanage this every step of the way. Fuck you.”

Vriska flipped him off.

He ignored this, instead shooing everyone out the door and into the garishly bright-orange truck, locking the door and smudging some protection sigils onto the doorstep, before running through a mental checklist for the fifth time,’ and then nodding to himself in satisfaction. He got into the truck and started up the engine, blasting the A/C against the Houston heat, and buckled in. “And Kankri?”

“Yes?” Kankri asked.

“… please find your own mark, but if you have to, I can share. Some humans have a thing for twins, apparently, and we look pretty similar.”

Kankri coughed. “Thank you.”  
“Alright, let’s get this show on the road, Nubs!” Latula shouted.

“Oh my Gog, fuck you, you didn’t have to scream into my ear, you bitch.” Karkat snapped, and got the show on the fucking road.

  
  


\-----------------------------------------------------

  
  


Just once, Karkat would like to be able to go out for a meal in  _ peace.  _ But no. No, apparently his existence was so much of a blight against the universe that he must suffer eternally for the mere termity of continuing to exist. That was the only possible explanation for this.

_ Sure,  _ it might  _ seem  _ like it was all going perfectly, with Mituna mingling and taking away the misfortune of the attempted victims of date-rape drugs, Kurloz and Gamzee picking fights at the bar and easing them down, Porrim and Kanaya making the crush of bodies on the dance floor tighter and closer than before and luring their marks off for a sip and a nibble, Tavros and Rufioh drawing out the heavy breathing of the dancing crowd, the Pyropes and Serkets gambling and absolutely crushing their opponents, something that Karkat would furiously deny that it was their main source of money, aside from their Youtube channel. It was  _ not,  _ ok? He slipped through the crowd, over to where his hatchmate was sitting at the bar, ineptly attempting to flirt with a fellow bar goer. Or maybe just lecturing them, who knows with this idiot. The point was, he felt uneasy, and Kankri was terrible at finding a mark.

“-and it’s important to- oh, hello, Karkat. Nick, this is my ha- my brother Karkat.”

“Hey,” Karkat gave a smirk, flicking his eyes up and down Nick’s body, noting the fading bite marks on his neck and his strong frame. Yeah, he could spare a few ounces, probably wouldn’t even feel it. He slid into the seat to his left, effectively making a Vantas buffer against any other interested parties. “Hope he hasn’t been boring you,” he showed just the hint of a canine, “He can talk quite a bit.” He flirted on autopilot, having gotten a taste of the guy’s bonds and knowing how to play him like a fiddle. He had his tactics down to an art, after sweeps spent in the human world. 

“Nah, it’s nice hearing someone so passionate about things, yanno? You raise some really good points, Kankri, I never even thought of it that way.” Nick was smiling at him.

Karkat raised his eyebrows. Kankri had either gotten lucky to find someone who was actually interested in a place like this, this guy  _ really  _ wanted to get laid, or both. He could work with any of them, really. “Yeah, we’re just a passionate family, I guess.” He smiled coyly. “But what about you?”

“Yes, I fear I’ve been talking far too much about myself,” Kankri said, mimicking Karkat’s expression and tone. 

“Well, I work at an animal hospital, and I’m also in college for a Masters in Biology, even though my parents don’t really approve, and-”

Karkat slipped away, job done as he felt the bond between them strengthen to something where Kankri could actually  _ get  _ somewhere. Well, he still had a mark to find. No time to fuck around.

His feeling of unease didn’t go away, though.

  
  


\------------------------------------------------------------

  
  


The rest of the night was pretty painless, which only raised more alarm bells in Karkat’s head. They didn’t even get into a scuffle over the Scourgesprits cheating (they were, but not in the human way) or one of the marks getting mad over not getting farther than few hickeys. They got in and out with zero complications, and Karkat just didn’t trust like that, as the humans said. 

Something was going to go wrong. 

“Stop being such a woooooooorrywart, Carcino-jerk! It’ll be  _ fiiiiiiiine,  _ you’ll see!”

“Stop! With! The! Mind! Reading! How! Many! Times! Do! I! Have! To! Say! It! Augh!” Karkat rounded on her, jabbing his finger accusingly. “You aren’t allowed to do it! Gamzee isn’t allowed to do it! Aranea isn’t allowed to do it! Kurloz isn’t allowed to do it! No one! Is allowed to do it! In my fucking hive! Augh!” 

“It’s not  _ my  _ fault that you’re a walking fountain of feelings,” she rolled her eyes. 

“Fuck off,” Karkat said. He just didn’t trust this. 


	19. Chapter 19

 

_ Gog,  _ did Karkat hate being right.

“I fucking told you!” Karkat yelled. “I told you but no one fucking listens!” 

The hive was filled with smoke, thick and choking.

Mituna ran for the door, hurriedly opening it. “Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he said worriedly. “This is bad, this is bad, this is bad-” he coughed and stumbled, before resuming his mad dash to the door, flinging it open. 

Vriska poked her head out of her room. “Gog, Karkat, it’s just burned cookies, it’s nothing to pitch a fit about,” Vriska rolled her eyes. 

“It smells like smoke! Are we burning things in here?” Terezi yelled, coming out of her room and grinning.

“NO!” Karkat yelled. He rounded on Rufioh and Mituna, who were fanning the smoke out the door hurriedly. “You fucking idiots! I *told* you to set a timer! WHY in the HELL does no one ever listen to me in this hive?!?”

“Uh… sorry, man, didn’t mean to make a mess…” Rufioh scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Guess we just sorta… lost track of time? Sorry…” 

“Don’t be sorry, do better, you shit-eating nitwits! Gog, is it too much to ask for you people to listen to me in my own damn hive?!?”

“You ain’t the one paying for it, Carcino-jerk!” Vriska yelled from her room.

“It’s my name on the lease!” He yelled back.

“Only because you’re the head of household!”

“And why is that?! Oh, that’s right, because you’re too lazy to do our taxes yourself!”

“Fuck off!”

“Fuck you!”

“That’s my job, Karkles!” Terezi called.

“Shut the fuck up!”

“SHUT UP!” Tavros yelled, voice carrying on the wind. “Some of us, are trying to fucking, watch a fucking movie!”

“It’s a stupid wriggler cartoon and you know it!” Karkat yelled back.

Kankri walked in the open door, Aranea behind him as they both carried bags of books from the local library. “Karkat, really, there is no need to belittle his interests, and I understand that you are likely upset about something but you do not need to take it out on-”

“SHUT UP!” the Beta Trolls accidentally chorused, all sick of his wordy bullshit after an entire week of it.

Kankri sniffed. “Well, I know when I’m not wanted,” he said prissily.

“Does he _ really?” _ Tavros grumbled.

Karkat only  _ just _ resisted screaming. The kitchen door was still open, after all, and their neighbors heard enough weird shit from them already.

  
  


\------------------

  
  


“Hey, Gamzee, do you want stew this week?” Karkat said, looking over the produce section critically. He checked his list again, and furrowed his brow as he looked for turnips. 

“Shit, bro, I wouldn’t mind it,” Gamzee said idly, surveying heads of lettuce.

“Well, do you want it enough to go grab some stuff? ‘Cause we’ve still got some beef in the freezer from when it was on sale last week, and all we need is some fennel and onions, so…” he gave a small, triumphant grin as he noticed the turnips in the corner of his eye, disappearing as he noticed the state of the already-small selection.

“Sure, inverte-bro,” Gamzee said easily, loping off to the spice section.

Karkat seized on a good-size turnip, finding minimal blemishes and bagging it and putting it in the cart.

A girl walked over, smiling. “Hey, Shorty, you throwin’ a party or somefin’?” her grin was easy, relaxed, like they knew each other well.

Karkat blinked. “Do I fucking know you?” he said flatly.

“Nah, but you cod,” she winked. “I just came to ask where the fish is, you seem to be pretty familiar with this place. I’m Amina, in town for a lil’ while. And you?” She talked fast and peppy, with a weird twist to her words that Karkat couldn’t place, and held her free hand out for a handshake.

Karkat didn’t take it. “Carl,” he said easily, fake name adopted for the human world rolling off his tongue seamlessly. “Just ask a fucking employee, I don’t work here.”

“Aw, so mean,” she pouted. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to talk to a cute guy.”

“Well, when you see one, call me,” Karkat grumbled. It’d be nice to get someone he could actually  _ be  _ with that wasn’t his hive. He’d been outrageously lucky with Gamzee, but none of the others would be anything less than a flaming trainwreck. He still shuddered whenever he thought of his six-sweeps-old antics with Terezi. And the last guy he thought he’d been pitch for- no. No, he wasn’t going to think of that again. He didn’t deserve- Karkat was over it. He was fucking  _ over it. _ No matter what that traitorous little voice in his pan whispered.

They girl slumped. “Oh, whale, there goes seaducing you with my feminine charms,” she grumbled. 

“What feminine charms,” Karkat said acidically. “Now get out of my way, I’m trying to shop here. Weren’t you getting fish or something?”

She pouted. “Can’t I at least give you my number?” she asked. “Then you can decide to call me or naught.”

“No,” Karkat said flatly.

Gamzee walked back, tossing a jar of fennel in the air idly with a bag of onions tucked under his arm. “Got the stuff, bro,” he said easily, placing them in the cart as he dropped a kiss on Karkat’s head. He gave Amina a critical look. “Who’s this, babe?” he said quizzically.

“Some weirdo who wants to give me her number,” Karkat said frankly. “She was just leaving.”

Gamzee got his meaning, and poked some unease into her head. “Well, best be on your way, chica,” he said cheerfully, letting him glamour slip just the littlest bit to make his canines seem longer.

She pursed her lips like a disappointed fish. “I’ll win you over, Crabby, you’ll see,” she said confidently. “Just you wait!”

“Please don’t,” Karkat said despondently. He gestured at Gamzee. “Look, he’s my boyfriend, I’m not interested in you, please leave me alone.”

“Fine, I can see when I’m not wanted,” she tossed her twin braids as she walked away.

“Why didn’t she leave fifteen minutes ago, then?” Karkat bitched at her retreating form.

“Who the motherfuck knows, pabe,” Gamzee said easily. “Wanna watch  _ Failure To Launch _ tonight?”

_ “Gog,  _ yes,” Karkat said emphatically.

The things Gamzee did for the miracle known as moirallegiance.

  
  


\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  
  


“Damn it, Meenah, you didn’t get the tracker on him!” Cronus hissed, punching her in the arm as the pair of demons walked to their car and began loading it with groceries.

“Oh, whale  _ excuse me _ for being a gill! He has a buoyfrond, I didn’t have a chance!” she snapped back. “Maybe  _ you  _ shoald have done it, bass shoal!”

“It’s not my fault my idiot kid brother got himself cursed! They’d recognize me!” he said back.

“Shut your fucks,” Damara said. “I took a picture of the car plate. Bingo. Internet search, bitch, now we track them.”

“Nice to know you can do somefin right every so often, Megido,” Meenah sneered.

“Choke on my clit and die,” she said breezily, scrolling through photos of hentai. “Can we go? I feel lamer just hanging out with you fucks.”

“Like the rest are much better,” Meenah muttered.

“Not much, but better than you!” Damara chirped.

“Fuck off, Megido.”

“ あなた自身の自我で自分自身をファックしてください,” Damara said.


	20. Chapter 20

Rose dropped the book she was reading in the living room, crack of the heavy tome hitting the floor startling the other Strilondes. “We might just have a problem,” she said. “A _large_ problem.” She looked at Dave. “Text Karkat, _now,_ and ask him where his hatchmate is. Quickly!” she said desperately, standing and pacing as he took out his phone.

turntechGoghead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
TG: wheres your hatchmate  
TG: rose said it was important  
TG: shit shes really agitated  
TG: oh gog

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGoghead [TG]

CG: HE’S AT THE LIBRARY WITH ARANEA.  
CG: HOW DO YOU KNOW I HAVE A HATCHMATE?!?!  
CG: OR THAT HE’S HERE?  
TG: rose dude  
TG: speaking of she’s still freaking out  
TG: rose says to call him  
TG: shes dktytcjgdgjjrsehsa

turntechGoghead [TG]   
is now tentacleTherapist [TT]

TT: call him right now karkat right now right now rightn jow  
TT: righjgr nowq hurry hurrty fuck shit fuk  
CG: JEGUS, ROSE, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?  
TT: righytj now!!!!!!!

carcinoGeneticist [CG] is idle!

carcinoGeneticist [CG] is no longer idle!

CG: OH GOG WHERE IS HE HES NEVER NOT ANSWERED BEFORE   
CG: OH GOG OH GOG OH GOG  
TT: come over  
TT: bring your Hive and his  
TT: and the CrockEngliHarlBerts

tentacleTherapist [TT] has ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

The Makaras were clustered around Karkat, Gamzee shooshing him and Kurloz hovering nervously as he felt abject terror pulse from the Hive leader.  
“We need to go,” Karkat said, grabbing his keys and walking to the door. “EVERYONE GET OUT HERE, WE NEED TO GO!” he yelled, voice shaking enough to bring them all racing.  
“What-”  
“Why-”  
“Are you-”  
“What’s-”  
“Why are-”  
“We need to go to John’s house,” he said. “And then we’ve got some hunters to see.” He peeled out of the driveway, gunning the engine as he raced there.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jade, Kanaya, and Porrim popped them into space just in front of the Strilonde’s house, sharing the load to lessen the strain, and Karkat vaulted the fence and ran to the door, swung open by Rose as he stopped just in front of it, her grabbing his arm and dragging him in, gesturing the others inside frantically.  
“Your hatchmate’s been taken,” she said to him. She looked at Vriska. “And yours.”  
Vriska snarled in fury. “By who?” she said tightly.  
Karkat’s blood was boiling, literally, his skin glowing red from the inside out. “It was those _f_ _ucking hunters,_ wasn’t it?” he snarled. “The ones who attacked him, they followed him here, didn’t they?”  
“I don’t know,” Rose said. “I don’t know all I Saw was him hurt and bound and Aranea cursing in a dark warded room and-” she caught her breath “-if you rush into this right now you will die, Karkat, and Kankri too, and then your two Hives will kill everyone in a 200 mile radius before other hunters get them and the world will learn about demons and it will descend into chaos and _you can't die, Karkat, because if you do you will not be the only one.”_ There was terror in her eyes, vision pulsing through her. “A Hive cannot stand without its leader, Karkat,” she said desperately, “and yours are strong and large and will _devastate all.”_  
She half collapsed into Dirk’s waiting arms, panting.  
The two hive looked at her in trepidation.  
“So, is this a, regular thing?” Tavros asked nervously.  
“No,” the Strilondes chorused, worried.  
“Oh,” he said. “Then, this isn’t, uh, good, probably?”  
“No,” Dirk said shortly, “it isn’t.”  
“Dsssstpbeinsssswrrddrk,” Rose slurs.  
“I’ll do that when you’re coherent, huh?” he said, setting her on the couch and propped her up on a few pillows.  
“Pssss’f,” she mumbled.  
Karkat looked at her dubiously. “Is it internal? ‘Cause I could fix it if it is…” he trailed off, uncertain.  
“No, just overexerted herself,” Dave sighed, coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water and saltine crackers. “She’ll be tired as hell, though, so she’s going to be out for a good eight hours. Long enough for us to strategize.” He looked at Karkat. “She seemed pretty adamant about not rushing in, dude.”  
Terezi snarled. “Ms. Lilac is right, although I hate to admit it! We have to listen to our Seers.” She looked at Mituna. “We need to use the **_Inacquiescent Melancholy.”_**  
He nodded, biting his lip, and took off his glass, hooking them into the collar of his shirt. “Let’s go,” he said solemnly. He looked over at the Strilondes. “I get that this is Houston and all, but do you know somewhere still and private? What we’re about to do shouldn’t get seen by humans, if they want to stay sane.” He looked at Dave a moment, then shook his head. “Yeah, that still stands. No humans within fifty feet. _Especially_ you, Hal,” he pointed at Dirk, “you’ve got enough Doomed splinters as is.”  
“My name is Dirk,” he said.  
“Well, shit, that’s a hell of a splinter,” Mituna said.  
“Are you going to explain, or just be cryptic as hell?” Dirk asked.  
“Cryptic as hell,” he and Terezi chorused, then high-fived. Had to get their kicks from somewhere, when everything was going to shit.  
“There’s a park by the edge of the north side of town no one goes to,” Dave offered. “I go there sometimes to take photos.”  
“Great!” Terezi chirped. “Come on!” she grabbed Mituna’s hand, filched the car keys from Karkat’s pocket, and dashed off before he could say anything, door slamming behind her and the squeal of tires heralding her exit.  
Dirk looked at Karkat with impassive disgust. “Is she always like that?” he asked in a monotone.  
“ _Yes,”_ sighed the Hives.  
“So!” Roxy said, recovering swiftly. “Any of y’all want some sweet tea?”  
Dave took one look at the whole mess, and picked up Rose bridal style. “I’m gonna put her to bed,” he said, and then flashstepped away.  
Kurloz looked at Roxy. _I’d love some,_ he signed. _I’ll need a straw, though._  
“K!” Roxy chirped, looking around. “Anyone else?”  
Jane forced a smile. “Sure, dear.”  
“Great!” Roxy said. “B-r-b!” She dashed off to the kitchen.  
John looked at Karkat. “Dude, what the fuck is up with them?”  
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Dirk gritted out.

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

Terezi traced out a circle in teal chalk, Mituna going counter to her with a stick of dark green, before they both sat in the center, cross-legged and glasses off as they stared into each other’s eyes, cutting their palms open and holding hands to allow their blood to mix and smear together.  
_**“Inacquiescent Melancholy,”**_ they said together, and their eyes glowed.  
 _Timelines, choices, what was happening what was happening, doom and death and destruction, dead timelines withering into shriveled up shoots, choices that lead to dead dead dead-_  
They surfaced with a synced gasp, looking at each other.  
“Ok,” Terezi said. “At least we’ve got a definite plan.”


	21. Chapter 21

“Alright,” Terezi said, smacking her hand on the rough map of the hunter base. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” She took out a piece of chalk, chomped off a bite, and then jabbed it at the Strilondes. “You,” she said firmly, “are going to be a distraction.”

“And who’s saying we’ll help?” Dirk said. “This doesn’t concern us. We aren’t involved.”

A thud, the sounds of someone tumbling down carpeted stairs, and everyone looked over to where Rose had limped out of her room. “Yes,” she said irritatedly, “we are. Shut up, brother dear. I will not have us be responsible for the overturning of civilization. So listen to the nice Troll, or I’ll  _ make  _ you.”

Dirk turned to Terezi. “So what are we doing to distract them?”

“Glad you asked, orange creamsicle!” she said. “You are going to do this revolutionary thing known as  _ welcoming them to the neighborhood.”  _ She waggled her fingers at him sarcastically. “Bring over a plate of goodies, make your stupid neighborly greetings, offer your help with them settling in, all the good stuff. Obviously,” she huffed, “they are not actually moving in, and only using their human ‘siblings’ old base, so it will add, as Gamzee so eloquently said-”

“More smoke and mirrors to our act,” he interrupted.

“Exactly! Thank you ever so, Mr. Grape Jelly, and do not interrupt me again or your head with be disconnected from your neck immediately after!”

Karkat snapped at her, fangs flashing without his glamour to hide them, and steel gleamed in Dave’s hand for a half-second before he realized and re-captchalogued it.

“Sorry,” he said, “reflex. Didn’t mean to. Wouldn’t do that. Not gonna happen again. Whoops. My bad-”

“Shut. Up.” Rose gritted out. “Brother dear.”

“So!” Terezi said again. “You four are going to serve as a distraction, and while that is going on, we are going to perform a four pronged attack! Jade, Kanaya, Porrim, you three are going to be on transport duty! Jane, you will also be with them for healing duty, and you, Karkat, for blood loss. You,” she pointed at Mituna, “will be going with them for defense and threat appraisal! You will enter through the back of the base, and follow this map,” she smacked down a sheet of printer paper, scribbled on with a rough layout of the base in bright orange, bright red and blue lines showing the route to Kankri and Aranea, a green swirl showing where they would warp away. “Tavros, Vriska, and I will be wreaking havoc in the left wing. Latula, John, and Rufioh, and Jake will tackle the right, all of us doing as much destruction as we can to the hunters and their base as possible. Kurloz, Gamzee,” she leveled them a look, “you know what to do. You’ll get in and find and curse any hunters you come across. Excluding present company, of course.”

They nodded in sync, Gamzee grinning wide and Kurloz smiling his thin-lipped smile. “Can do, sis,” Gamzee answered for the both of them, “we been waiting a while for a chance to spread some Mirth.”

She looked at the nervous hunters, only Rose and Dirk looking impassive, and Rose the only one not smelling of discomfort. “You smell disquieted!” she crowed. “Funny, as you never showed it while attempting to kill us for the nerve of existing! Curious, isn’t it?”

Dirk looked down. “You were a threat,” he said. “These guys aren’t a threat to humans.”

“Yes, they really fucking are!” she said false-cheerfully. “They have hurt members and hatchmates of two ludicrously overpowered Hives, who also have a capital ‘B’ Bond with another Hive! If you cull the leader, a Hive will fall, and  _ one  _ falling Hive is bad enough, never mind three! So they are, in fact, a threat to humans! Fuck you very much!” she yelled, hands smacking down on the table as she leaned into his space, huffing.

“And _double_ fuck you for only caring about your precious humans! Our Hives haven’t hurt _anyone_ on purpose! We are trying to fucking survive because we can’t even go home and you-” she broke off, snarling. “We just want to go _home_ but we can’t even do that without getting _culled!_ _Fuck_ you, Dirk Strider, and _fuck_ humans! So you are going to help us before I cull you where you fucking stand, so help me _Gog!”_ Her teeth were bared completely, a snarl twisting her face, and she snapped her head around to look at the Makaras. “And don’t you two even _think_ about taking away my anger, either!”

They put their hands up in surrender. “A’ight, chica,” Gamzee said. “Ain’t our business. And besides,” he said darkly, “you’re right.”

“Is everyone done with being an asshole? Yes? No? Rhetorical question, the answer is fucking yes, now everyone go get some fucking rest, plan’s made, and no fucking sneaking off to try to talk sense into assholes who can’t be fucking helped, yes, you, looking at you, Mituna, you fucking asshole, so help me Gog-” 

Gamzee papped Karkat, who blinked, and then carried on. “Alright, everyone get their asses hive, we have a hell of a fucking day tomorrow.”

They all scattered in record time, Jade simply warping her Hive and their car home and the Red Teams packing up and leaving in their car in minutes.

“Hey, quick Q-and-A: what the  _ fuck?” _ Dave asked.

“Seconded,” Dirk said.

“Thirded,” Roxy said.

“The answer is very simple,” Rose said. “Mother. Fucking.  _ Shenanigans.”  _

“Hell of an explanation,” Dirk said flatly. “Thank you ever so, Professor Lalonde.”

“My pleasure,” her voice was clipped, cool. “I am going to pass out now,” she said, and fainted into Roxy’s arms, having over exerted herself after Seeing such a large Vision.

“Well, shit, D-Stris,” Roxy said, gathering Rose up bridal-style. “They went  _ off _ on us.”

Dirk facepalmed. “Gog, I hate it when other people are right,” he groaned.

  
  


\-----------------------------------------

  
  


Terezi was breathing heavily, surrounded by the scraps of stuffing and fabric that used to be her collection of scalemates as she snarled wildly. Stupid humans, stupid hunters, stupid gogdamn hemospectrum, stupid-

“... .... ..- - / - .... . / ..-. ..- -.-. -.- / ..- .--. ,” came the knock on her door.

“Fuck off, Kurloz!” she yelled. 

“--.- ..- .. . - / - .... . / ..-. ..- -.-. -.- / -.. --- .-- -. / - .... . -.”

“Go pail yourself, asshole!”

“BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Karkat yelled. “SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!”

“Then you probably just woke them up!” Terezi yelled back, flinging the door open to yell at Karkat properly.

“.... -.-- .--. --- -.-. .-. .. - . !” Kurloz banged on the wall, loudly, at the same time.

Kanaya poked her head out of her block, looking at the the two of them with a distinctly ashy look in her eyes.

“Fine!” Terezi slammed the door, and turned off the lights, stripping into a t-shirt and boxers and flopping into bed angrily. She rolled in her sheets, tangling herself up in agitation, before settling.  _ So _ *fucking* stupid.


	22. Chapter 22

Dirk held the plate of brownies uncomfortably as Roxy rang the doorbell incessantly.

“Rox, you know you don’t have to be so excited, right? We aren’t here to make friends, they’re actual real-life kidnappers and torturers and shit-”

“Dave,” Dirk said flatly, “we aren’t much better.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But nothing, Dave,” Rose said. “We’re going to spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for the sins we’ve committed against innocents because we believed they were murders by dint of species and what our guardians told us, and we’ll live with those deaths forever.” She swallowed hard, and swatted Roxy’s hand away from the doorbell. “I never bothered to even  _ Look _ at what they were doing, I just assumed they were inherently guilty and-”

“Vwho the fuck are you?” an assholish 50-greaser-type said, leaning on the doorframe and chewing on an unlit cigarette. 

“Well, howdy, nice to meet you too, welcome to the neighborhood, lovely day ain’t it?” Dirk said flatly.

“Fuck off,” the greaser said, closing the door.

Roxy bumped it open with her hip. “But it’s been so long since we met other hunters!” She whined. “Look, we brought brownies and everything!”

“Really?” he opened the door wider. “Other hunters, huh? Hovw do I knovw you’re tellin’ the truth, huh? You could just be some sneaky demons tryin’ to vwheedle me into lettin’ ya in.”

“Bitch, do I  _ look  _ like a dem-”

“Keep the memes under wraps in polite company, Dave,” Rose said. “Gog, someone push this nerd off a cliff.” She rolled her eyes. “There’s a simple way to settle this,” she took out a small pocket knife, and sliced down the back of her arm, beads of red blood welling up. “See? It’s red, I’m human.”

The asshole sneered. “See, I’d believwe you, but see, we just picked up a guy vwith red blood, and he sure ain’t human. So you’ll need to try a little harder, sugar.”

“Dude,” Dave said, staring in naked distaste, “did you just call my sister ‘sugar? This ain’t the fifties anymore, dude.”

“Hey, screvw you, dick, I  _ like _ talkin’ this vway, so piss off.”

“Well, damn, you sure showed me, didn’t you, damn, I just got fucking owned there, dude,” Dave drawled.

Roxy rolled her eyes. “There’s no need to be so snippy with the new guy, Davey!” she chirped. “It’s reasonable for him to be suspicious, he doesn’t know us at all! But here,” she grabbed the brownies from Dirk and shoved them at the greaser, “take these! Made ‘em myself, and they’re pretty good if I say so myself!”

Rose smirked as she remembered the added ingredient she had chosen. Yes, some nicely grown ‘hyper’allergenic herbs that she’d cultivated should teach them. “She’s telling the truth, she’s an excellent cook,” Rose said instead, looking at Roxy in admiring jealousy. 

The greaser took the plate from where she was poking him in the stomach with it with a grimace. “Yeah yeah, fine, I’ll take ‘em, jeez, kitten,” he rolled his eyes. “Pushy much?”

Roxy grinned. “Pushy enough!” she chirped. 

Dirk checked his watch. Five minutes. Shit. They needed more time. “You said ‘we’, dude,” he said, “are there others with you? It’d be nice to meet all of y’all at once, introduce ourselves properly so we don’t accidentally attack each other on hunts, you know?” 

“Why should I evwen trust you, huh? Hovw do I knovw you aren’t secretly demons?” the guy sneered.

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades. “I don’t know, maybe spray me with salt or touch me with silver or one of the literal  _ thousands  _ of other ways to check if someone’s a demon?”

The greaser made an irritated tsk. “Vwell, yeah, novw that I think of it, sure,” he reached into his pocket and threw a handful of salt at the Strilondes, grains bouncing off the Strider’s glasses and working into the entire family’s hair and clothes.

**_“Dude,”_ ** Dave said with feeling, “what the  _ fuck?” _

“Vwhat?” the asshole asked. “You say spray you vwith salt, I spray you vwith salt.”

“He meant pour it on our hands or something, not  _ chuck it in our faces,” _ Rose gritted out.

“My vway is faster, though,” the dickbag said smugly.

Roxy shook off the salt, some of it hitting the dickhead in the face himself. “Neat that you just keep it in your pocket like that!” she said. 

The fucker preened. “I  _ told _ evweryone it vwas a good idea, but no one listens to geniuses in their time, I guess. But sure, I’ll introduce you to the gang. Not all of them are as nice as me, though, so try not to get all offended.”

Roxy giggled, and prayed for death. Pretty little dumb blonde who would finally see what a nice guy he was, who certainly wasn’t a big name physics-paper writer under a male pseudonym and who knew absolutely nothing about dark matter or black holes. None of that here! “Aw, but if they’re half as nice as you it’ll be a breeze!” she simpered.

“Aw, you’re sweet, kitten,” he grinned.

Amazing, how easy this guy was. Fucking stunning.

“Come on in,” he held open the door, angling the brownies out of the way, and let the Strilondes in. They filed in, looking around at the disaster area of a base.

“Yeah, sorry about the mess, no one evwer cleans up vwhen I tell them to,” the douche sighs, kicking a pizza box out of the way as he lead the way to the kitchen. “HEY EVWERYONE, VWE GOT GUESTS!” he yelled, a bouncy-looking girl skipping into the kitchen and begining to sign rapidly.

“Vwoah, vwoah, hold up kitty, sign a bit slovwer for the crovwd, yeah?” he said, batting the air near her in a placating gesture. “This is Meulin, she’s deaf, so vwhenevwer she tries to talk out loud she’s super loud, so brace yourselvwes, yeah? Meu, these are,” he looked away from where he was talking with exaggerated movements, turning to the Strilondes. “Vwhat are your names, anvway? You nevwer told me them.”

“I’m Roxy, and that’s Dirk, Rose, and Dave!” she said, looking at Meulin as she pointed them in turn. “Nice to meet you both!” 

“Nice to meet you too!” Meulin said back loudly. “It’s so exciting to meet new people! Normally we’re never in one place long enough! But now you’re here! Do you use Pesterchum?! We could exchange handles! Then we could stay in touch!”

“What’s pesterchum?” Roxy lied through her teeth. “I’ve never heard of that, could you explain it to me?”

“Oh, no problem, kitten,” the ass said smoothly. “It’s this messaging system, where you can text people based on their Chumhandles, which are like their usernames. It’s real easy to use, and there’s a memo system where you can talk to multiple people at a time. Real simple, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. If you vwant, I could help you set one up right novw, you knovw,” he smiled, like he was such a nice guy for over explaining something simple in ten times the words needed.

“Oh, that’s sweet of you! I’ll look it up when I get home, you’re so informed about this!” Roxy smiled at him. Holy fucking shit, was this guy easy to play or WHAT?!

“What might your name be?” Rose said cooly, looking at the fucker expectantly. 

“Cronus, sugar, but you can call me Cro,” he winked. 

Jegus fucking Christ.

“It’s nice to meet you, Cronus,” she said. She looked slightly over at Dirk, face still in Meulin’s line of sight. “Doesn’t he rather remind you of Nathaniel? He’s my cousin, but he’s almost like a younger brother to me,” she looked Cronus head on.

“Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?” Dirk looked at Cronus flatly, giving no sign that they had no cousins in their family. Woo, only-children parents for the win.

“Ah,” Cronus leaned slightly back. “Must be a real charmer, then, this Nathaniel, get all the ladies, I bet.”

“No, he’s never really been lucky in romance, but he’s very sweet,” Rose said sweetly. “Quite hopeless at flirting, but charming in all else.” She used the final blow. “He’s quite the Momma’s boy, always helping out in the kitchen, and the best in the church choir.” 

Nothing to challenge a “nice guy”’s fragile masculinity like insinuating the slightest bit of femininity.

“Sounds like a svweetheart, but not really like me,” Cronus gritted out. “I’vwe never been one for all that, more of a rough-and-tumble kind a’ guy.”

“If you say so,” Rose said sweetly. “I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“You do that,” Cronus said. 

“Oh,” Rose smiled, “I do.”

“Oh, are there guests?” A nerd in a horse shirt and welding goggles wandered in. “Hello, I am Horuss. It is wonderful to meet you. I do apologize for the mess, as we haven’t had much time to clean.” He had a really weird expression on his face, making everyone uncomfortable.

“Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ great, Hor, you can go at any time,” Cronus sneered.

Dave was horrified to find himself agreeing with the slimeball, but he also was extremely petty. “Nah, dude, he seems pretty cool, right? Stick around a while.” The things he did for spite.

Dirk nodded. “You working on a project? I do some robotics myself, what about you?”

“Oh, I have a STRONG passion for robotics!” He answered cheerfully, still making the uncomfortable expression. “Currently I am working on a miniature robotic horse, able to move and whinny at its own will!”

“Sounds neat, can you show me it?” Dirk asked. 

“Oh yes, it is just in my workshop!” Horuss answered. “Right this way!”

Dirk saluted as he followed, giving the Strilonde Field Signal™ for “I’mma wreck his shit, brb”, a twisting flick of his wrist that ended with his fingers splayed.

Dave gave back the signal for “go on baby, I’ll hold your flower”, a quick tucking-something-behind-his-ear and a thumbs up. 

Rose rolled her eyes.  _ Gog, _ they were such nerds. She checked her watch. 15 minutes. Alright, not much time now. 

A blinding flash of Light behind her eyes, and she nearly toppled over. “Oh Gog,” she rasped, coughing.

“Yo, you ok, sugar-” 

She grabbed Roxy’s hand, and ran out the door, ignoring Cronus’s call. “DAVE, DIRK, RUN!” she yelled, dashing to the door, flinging open the door just in time for the Makaras to walk in. 

“Thanks, sis,” Gamzee said. “You better start motherfucking running, else you’ll get caught in the crossfire.”

She took his advice, and ran, her siblings following suit as the Makaras stiltwalked into the kitchen, blocking any escape for the two hunters inside.

They grinned at them, too many teeth in Gamzee’s smile, stitches on Kurloz’s mouth stretching and straining, and Cronus paled. 

Dirk strode out of Horuss’s workshop, waving at the Makaras nonchalantly. “One of them is knocked out in there,” he jerked his thumb at the door, “I handcuffed him to a chair, and cuffed his feet, too, so he isn’t going anywhere. Pleasure working with you,” he said, walking out the door a bit faster than strictly necessary. He was not  _ running away,  _ ok? He just wanted to catch up with his siblings, ok?  _ Ok? _

Yeah, he was running away, but no one had to know that.


	23. Chapter 23

Terezi smashed a window, and lass-scampered in, team following behind. “Let’s wreck their shit!” she yelled.

A cry of assent from the moirails, and Tavros started up a windstorm, shattering windows and whirling around. Vriska rolled her die, and got 7-8-5-3-5-4-5-6, swinging around a mace with expert control. 

A girl in red slammed open her door, white pistols in hand, and spat out a blunt into the mini tornade, ripping it to shreds. “Get at me, bitch,” she hissed. She fired, bullets spitting out much faster than should be possible, but Tavros slammed them away with a front of air. 

Terezi neatly sliced her guns in half, cane sword whipping through the air with fluid ease. 

Vriska slammed her mace into the girl’s legs, spikes cutting into her legs and heavy top slamming into her with a ‘crack!’, bringing her down as both her kneecaps shattered.

_ “Bitch!!” _ she screamed, pain coloring her voice. She brought out a new gun, aiming shakily, but Tavros flicked it out of her hand. 

**_“You don’t mess with our Hive,”_ ** they hissed in chorus, eyes flashing Blood red.

Terezi brought the butt of her cane down on the girl’s temple, and she was down for the count.

  
  


\---------------------------------------------

  
  


Latula yeeted through the window on her skateboard, captchaloguing her skateboard before she hit the ground and drawing her metal batkind specibus, the judgmental face of Hello Kitty whipping through the air as she tested her swing. “Let’s wreck their shit!” she yelled.

“Woo!” John answered, skipping in on a breeze. “Hell yeah!”

Jake hopped in, and drew his pistols. “Pitter patter, lads and lass! We’ve got havoc to wreak!”

Rufioh scooted in, and summoned his wind-lance, seeming determined but uncomfortable. “Yeah… let’s do this…” 

“You seem hesitant, old chap!” Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’ll turn out fine and dandy! Nothing to fear!”

“Yeah.. I know that… it’s just… one of them tried to  _ hit _ on me,” he said, clearly disgusted. “And I mean, what if he does it again? It was super weird, dude.”

“We can take care of him for you, bro!” John said, sending a gentle push with the wind. “No need to deal with a creep like that yourself!”

Rufioh relaxed. “Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.”

Latula punched him in the arm. “We got your back, dog! Now let’s fuck shit up!”

“Yeah!” Rufioh yelled.

  
  


\-----------------------------

  
  


“Fuckin’ talk, beach,” Meenah slapped the demon, raking her nails over the cuts on his face.

“There’s-” he coughed, red blood spattering his lips “-n-n-no need t-to curse,” he rasped. “T-tag your pr-pr-prof-f-fanity-” he hacked, a gob of blood and spit flying from his lips.

“Fuck your tagging,” she punched him in the stomach, “fuckin talk, where’s the rest of yoar hive, huh, beach?”

“You c-can’t exp-p-pect t-to be t-t-t-taken seriously, iffff you’re going to be so rude,” he wheezed.

“Shoald I bring in yoar frond again?” Meenah sneered. “Maybe then she’ll talk, never shuts up about anything else, gave me a fuckin lecture on butterfly wings last time I saw her, fuckin nerd.”

“N-nerd is a hurtful t-t-t-term,” he said, swallowing futilely against his dry throat.

“You’re a trip, kid,” she said. “Now tell me where your Hive is, and I’ll kill you quick.”

“I w-w-will  _ not.” _

“You sound like Ampora. You know, the one you tried to  _ kill?” _

“It was an  _ accident!” _ he cried with sudden vehemence. “I didn’t  _ mean _ to, I  _ hate _ feeding and I  _ hate _ flirting with people and I hate leading them on and I was fucking  _ starving, you bitch, fuck you and fuck me for being too much of a pansy to take care of myself!” _ he snarled at her, the first show of anger since she’d captured him.  _ “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuuuuuuuuck you! Fuck you, Meenah Pexies, Thief of Life, sister of Feferi Pexies and daughter of Candice Pexies, leader of the Alpha Blue Hunters, tormenter of Damara Megido, unwitting heiress to the Tyrian Throne and attempted culler of your _ **_own damn mother,_ ** _ )(er Imperious Condescen-” _

“SHUT UP!” Meenah yelled, punching him in the face and knocking out a tooth. “It wasn’t my fault, I had to, she was going down some dark majjyk path, I  _ had  _ to kill her!”

He looked up, glaring. “But you  _ didn’t,” _ he hissed, voice full of venom. “You  _ didn’t _ kill her, you  _ STUPID BITCH, _ she’s alive and she’s ruining EVERYTHING,  _ she’s _ the reason we had to flee to the human realm,  _ she’s  _ the reason there are other demons wreaking havoc around the world,  _ she’s still fucking alive and you FAILED!” _

“No,” Meenah said, backing up and shaking her head. “No no no no no, I stabbed her in the gut with my trident, I fucking buried that bitch, she’s fucking dead, you’re _ lying!” _

He spat at her. “You turned your back on the  _ fucking body!” _ he yelled.  _ “You never turn your back on the body! They’re not dead until. They’re.  _ **_Fucking. DEAD!!!”_ ** he screamed, spit flying from his fangs, eyes glowing red.  **_“AND SHE FUCKING WASN’T!!!”_ **

“I killed her, I fucking killed her, you’re lying you’re lying you’re lying  _ you’re fucking lying!” _ Meenah snarled at him, grabbing he trident and poking it menacingly at him.

Kankri looked up. “You can block me, but you can’t block the truth.”

“YOU AIN’T GOT THE RIGHT TO BE USING MEMES!!!” Meenah screeched angrily. 

The door  _ shrunk,  _ compressed metal landing heavily on the floor with a ‘clang!’

“Cavalry's here, fuckass!” Jade yelled, ears and tail in hunting position. She took on the scene, Kankri hanging from the rafters by his wrists and bleeding heavily, cuts and lacerations covering him completely, broken fangs scattered on the floor and splatters of bright red blood around them, and she paled.

There was a space of a millisecond, and then there was a howl of rage, Porrim tearing at Meenah with her claws out, knocking her to the floor and raking through her flesh like a chainsaw through fabric. She head-butted her in the forehead, reveling in the hard 'crack!’ of Meenah’s head hitting the bloody floor, and then punched her in the face, snarling with vicious delight as her glasses shattered inward and Meenah howled in agony as glass crunched into her eye. She  _ pulled _ , dislocating Meenah's arms, and raked down her forearms with her claws. She grabbed Meenah’s hair, yanking her head to bare her neck, and started forward-

Karkat slammed her into the opposite wall by her blood, leaving her there in a daze, and grabbed a weakly-resisting Meenah, pinning her to the floor with one hand as he concentrated, sinking his consciousness into her blood, biting his thumb and smearing it over a deep cut when it resisted against him. He stretched himself through her veins, directing white and red blood cells where they were needed, scabbing over and healing tissues, but making sure to not heal them cleanly, letting them scar. Finally, he moved onto her eye, and began levering the glass shards out, blood pushing out every last shard and grain, depositing them in a slightly bloody heap on her cheek. He couldn’t do anything about the damage to her vision, and he wasn’t about to ask  _ Aranea _ to fix it, so he left it, standing up and wiping the blood off on his jeans. 

“Alright, assholes,” he said hoarsely, looking at the barely-healed Kankri, supported by Jane and Jade, Kanaya holding the exhausted form of Aranea up, Porrim getting up with a glare of steadily lightening-orange sclera. “Let’s move the fuck out. Space bitches, living room of my hive, if you fucking would.” 

They popped out, leaving Meenah in a crumpled heap of pain, and the Space bitches promptly found a seat to flop heavily onto, not quite exhausted into collapsing into unconsciousness, but tired out of their fucking minds.

  
  


\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
  


Gamzee grinned. “Kinda rude of you, tryin to mess with us, doncha think?” he crooned, advancing on Cronus. 

**-PRETTY MOTHERFUCKIN RUDE INDEED, BRO-** Kurloz agreed.  **-PRETTY MOTHERFUCKIN IMPUDENT, TOO, THINKING YOU COULD TAKE US ON-**

Cronus took out his rifle. “We ain’t scared of ya,” he said. “Glad ya came to us, now we can get rid of ya scum, an’ then those fuckin traitors too.” He turned off the safety. “These are salt-laced silver bullets, fucker. You’re going to  _ hurt _ ‘fore ya die.”

Gamzee grabbed the silver barrel, and  _ squeezed _ , crumpling it like a piece of tinfoil. “Oh,  _ are _ we?” he grinned. 

Meulin yowled loudly, donning her silver claws and slicing at Kurloz, but he grabbed her wrist and flicked his own, throwing her into the wall with ease.  **-NAH-** he said.  **-I DON’T THINK WE WILL. YOU, HOWEVER-** his stitches stretched in a smile.  **-ARE** **_DEFINITELY_ ** **GOING TO HURT-**

“Aw, shit,” Cronus said. 

‘Aw, shit’ was right.

Gamzee grabbed him by the neck, squeezing, and spun purple fog in the air with his other hand, twirling it like cotton candy, and with a flick, it sped into Cronus’s gasping mouth, making him convulse as chucklevoodoos filled his head with fear and pain. Eventually, he fainted from lack of oxygen and fright, and Gamzee dropped him, looking over to see Kurloz had done the same to the Kittybitch 2: Electric Boogaloo. 

“Two down,” he said.

**-THREE TO GO-** Kurloz smiled.

“I’ll take the one in the workshop, you find the others,” Gamzee said, walking to the door and kicking it in.

**-YOU DO THAT, BUT YOU BETTER CATCH UP SOON. I AIN’T WAITING, AND IF I FIND THE FIFTH FIRST, I WON’T LET YOU HELP-** Kurloz smirked. 

“Ain’t gonna begrudge you that, bro,” Gamzee said back. He walked in, and cracked his knuckles, kicking over the chair the fucker was cuffed to, letting it land on the floor with a crack of wood and a yelp of pain from its just-waking owner. “Howdy, motherfucker,” he grinned. “Gonna be neat goin’ into your headspace, ain’t it?” With that, he summoned purple fog, and got to work. 

  
  


\---------------

  
  


Damara had just wriggled into a sitting position, yanking at her cuffs and trying not to jostle her legs, when footsteps sounded and she got kicked down again. Seeing yet another demon, this one the purple bastard in facepaint, she began cursing. “たわごとの地獄の地獄の地獄のたわごとのたわごとのたわごとのたわごとのたわごと地獄の地獄のおばあさんのお尻おばあちゃんの雌犬!!!” She said in fury. “ファック、あなたのファック、ファック、あなたとあなたのたわごと顔のペイント、ファックあなたはあなたが性交するファック!”

**-CHICA-** Kurloz glared  **-YOU DON’T DISS THE MOTHERFUCKING PAINT-** and he summoned twin smokey orbs with a twist of his hands.

She choked on purple smoke, wheezing first in desperation for air, then in fear from the images in her head. 

“いいえいいえいいえいいえいいえいいえいいえいいえくださいありがとうございます停止しないでください停止してくださいそれを停止してくださいしてください私は申し訳ありません申し訳ありません私はそれをしてくださいしてくださいしてくださいしないでくださいお願いします!!!” she screamed.

He didn’t stop, sinking his claws deeping into her fears, binding them to the very concept of demons in any capacity, writing a fear of violence and weapons deep into the core of her. Vindictively, he burned a terror of the sight of blood into her, a bone-deep fear of it. Satisfied, he withdrew, looking at her shaking, sobbing form with satisfaction, and turned on his heel, heading towards the last untouched human mind. He could tell that that one would require something…  _ special. _

  
  


\-------------------------------------

  
  


Gamzee strolled through the halls, snickering over the little touch he’d added to the horse-perv’s head; making him deathly afraid of the animals but still remember his old delight over them would really screw with the guy. Kurloz sent out a wave of smugness over the chucklevoodoos, and Gamze sent back a mirror of it, still remembering the look on the  _ (ex-) _ hunter’s face as he came face to face with one of his creepy horse posters after he’d been chucklevoodooed up  _ reeeeaaaaal _ nice. 

**-BRO-**

Honk? 

**-I KNOW I SAID I WOULDN’T SHARE-**

_ Hooooonk.  _

**-BUT I’LL BE NEEDING SOME HELP ON THIS ONE-**

… _ honk :o) _

Oh, this was going to be motherfuckin  _ bitchin’. _

  
  


\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
  


The Makaras met each other with the twin signs of the Mirthful Messiahs. 

**-READY TO DO SOME MOST UPRIGHT AND MOTHERFUCKING MIRTHFUL WORK, INVERTEBRO?-** Kurloz asked, cracking his neck as he kicked open the door to the cellar.

“Hell motherfuckin yes,” Gamzee grinned.

**-HELL-**

“Fuckin.” 

**-YES-**

They walked in with mismatched smiles, wide grin to stretched stitches.


	24. Chapter 24

Meenah knew she was fucked, even before the clowns came in.

She was drifting from blood loss, felt ripped apart and shoved together wrong from what that  _ fuckin demon _ had said, and she couldn't see at  _ all _ out of her left eye, surface of it slick with blood. 

_ You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body! You turned your back on the fucking body!  _

_ They’re not dead until. They’re.  _ **_Fucking. DEAD!!!_ **

**_AND SHE FUCKING WASN’T!!!_ **

**_SHE FUCKING WASN’T!!!_ **

**_SHE FUCKING WASN’T!!!_ **

**_SHE FUCKING WASN’T!!!_ **

Nononononononononono, she  _ had _ to be, ok? She  _ had _ to be, Meenah had speared her straight through with her silver fucking trident, seen the too-pink-to-be-human blood pool on the ground, she’d fucking  _ buried that bitch, _ she was  _ dead, _ she  _ had _ to b-

**-YOU**

“You-”

**FUCKED**

“-fucked-”

**UP**

“-up-”

**BITCH-**

“-bitch.”

The absolute  _ WALL _ of noise in her head made her cry out, clutching at her ears and curling into herself, before a harsh kick to the stomach left her sprawled out.

“Oh, girl, girl,  _ girl, _ ain’t you realized?” a mocking voice crooned.

**-YOU CAN’T RUN-**

“You can’t hide.”

**-AND YOU SURE AS HELL CAN’T STOP US-**

“Honk.”

**-HONK-**

“Honk :o)”

_ “How did you make that noise with your mouth?!?” _ she cried.

“Aw, girl, the answer is so damn obvious,” he chided, fisting his claws in the collar of her shirt and pulling her up to eye level with him. “Can’t you fucking see?” He grinned, teeth bared like a wall of blades. “Motha’. Fuckin’.  _ Miracles.” _

A twitch, and a long black loop of her hair tightened around her throat, cutting off her air and leaving her gasping for air as her braid was looped over the beam where Kankri had hung from his wrists while she beat the shit out of him, hoisting her to toes as she strained to not choke herself on her impromptu noose. “Pl-pl-please-” she gasped. Her breaths were rasping and short. “Please, I cccan’t-”

**-YOU GOT A LOT OF NERVE-**

A fist drove hard into her stomach, and she stumbled away at the impact, hair-noose tightening around her neck as it strained between her head and the rafter it was tied to.

**-A LOT OF MOTHERFUCKING NERVE INDEED-**

A backhand to the face. She couldn’t see their faces, head spinning and dizzy from blood loss, and she’d nearly forgotten about her eye  _ (she can’t see can’t see can’t see, it feels like just another swollen black eye but it’s not it’s not it’s not, fuck fuck fuck fuck-) _ until red-painted claws toss away her glasses and hold her other one open painfully wide, two freakshow clown faces looking at her with malice and mirth. 

“Aw, looks like they didn’t finish up here,” the one with the unstitched mouth purred. “Guess that leaves it up to us, don’t it?”

**-SURE MOTHERFUCKING SEEMS IT-**

He let her go, stepping back and grinning, and Meenah breathed a short sigh of relief, before her nose was grasped lightly by the very tips of mustard-yellow painted claws, and then shattered in three places as the mime pinched down. 

Gamzee bent down, picking up Kankri’s knocked-loose fangs from the floor, counting them up as he went. “Knocked out twelve fangs, bro,” he commented idly. 

**-WELL YOU KNOW HOW OUR GOOD KANKRI-BROTHER FEELS ABOUT MOTHERFUCKING EQUALITY-** Kurloz’s stitched lips stretched in a smile.  **-GOTTA BE LISTENING TO YOUR LEADER AS IS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU-**

A fist crashed into her face, knocking her to the side, and her dislocated arms swung painfully at her sides, causing tears to trickle down her face. Claws pried her mouth open while she was dazed, and she had a moment of fear before they hooked on her bottom left molars and  _ pulled, _ tearing them out straight at the root, ripping through the gums and filling her mouth with blood.

Kurlz considered them in his hand.  **-THREE DOWN-** he smiled.  **-NINE TO GO-**

Meenah sobbed, and Gamzee wrenched her head back by her other braid.

“Aww, girl, ain’t no reason to be all sad-like, now, is there?” he half-purred. “This is just some motherfuckin’  _ payback, _ girl, gotta treat others the way you wanna be treated and all that human wriggler nonsense, yeah?  _ And you ain’t been treatin’ us too kind, now have you?” _

“Ffffuck you, yyyou’re evil, ffffuckin’ demons-”

_ “Bitch, _ we ain’t the ones goin’ around fuckin’ murdering people!” Gamzee slapped her, hard. “It’s your own motherfuckin’  _ momma _ sending ‘em out to sow chaos! We ain’t the ones out here culling your precious motherfuckin humans!  _ It is written in our Blood that we shall not kill humans without cause, and you accuse us of it?!” _ he punched her in the gut. “How motherfucking  _ dare you?!” _

“It ain’t her!” Meenah yelled. “It ain’t fuckin’ her, I killed that bitch, I fucking killed her, I forked her through the middle myself and Gogdamn buried her! She’s fucking  _ dead!” _

**-NO THE FUCK SHE AIN’T, CHICA-** the mime’s eyes flashed.  **-SHE’S THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ REASON OUR HIVES ARE ON THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ RUN, AND NOT KICKING THE WICKED SHIT IN MOTHERFUCKIN’ PROSPIT AS WE SHOULD BE-**

“It’s your momma’s Gogdamn fault it’s all gone to motherfuckin shit,” the clown hissed. “It was all  _ motherfuckin’ fine _ till she showed up, you heretic ass  _ bitch, _ and now you can’t leave  _ well enough the motherfuck alone!” _ he punched her in the face again, and another two teeth fell out of her mouth. 

**-SEVEN MORE-** the mime took the clown’s place and pried her mouth open again, this time grabbing her top right canine and ripping it out, careless and cruel.

Meenah screamed in agony, cutting off suddenly as the clown yanked on her braid and choked her, leaving her wheezing and gasping for air.

**-SIX MORE-** the mime looked at her dispassionately.

Meenah wasn’t sure how she’d survive this.


	25. Chapter 25

_ “What?!?”  _

“So yeah, basically there’s some assholes who tried to fuck with us at 612 Lowaa street, probably gonna need a hospital or some shit, hell if I give a shit ‘bout them. All motherfuckin’ crazy too, real fucked in the head.”

_ “I’m sorry sir, did you just say you and one other attacked five heavily armed people and half-killed them?!?!” _

“Eh, there were others who swept in as the first wave, but yeah, pretty much. Good talk, bro.” Gamzee hung up, even as the 911 operator began squawking on the other side of the phone.

“Yeah, we’re good here, bro,” he called to Kurloz. 

**-LET’S GO-**

The Makaras strolled out of the front door, even as sirens built in the distance, and stilt-walked back hive.

  
  


\-------------------

  
  


“Took you assholes long enough!” Karkat yelled, taking a break from chugging a bottle of their blood reserves and glaring, before turning back to Kankri and focusing on his injuries once again. More steadily scabbed over, scabs falling off to reveal grey-pink scars, faint but there. “Sorry I can’t heal them all the way,” he sighed. “They were there for so long, and from hunter weapons, so…”

“I don’t give a shit,” Kankri snapped. “Serves me fucking right, getting my idiot ass caught like that, not to mention  _ Aranea _ on top of it. It’s my fault we’re in this shitty mess, all the way down.” 

Porrim watched with jealous eyes, wanting to be the one to be there for him, the one to patch his injuries and make him feel so much better.

Yeah, Kankri was done with this.

“You know what?!” he yelled, looking at her with a snarl. “I’m done with this! I’m done with your stupid pale crush on me! I’ve told you a thousand fucking times, I’m not interested in you, or relationships at all, but what do you do?! What do you do?!”

She balked. “Kanny, I-”

“DON’T CALL ME KANNY!” he yelled.

Karkat left, not wanting to get caught up in another Hive’s drama, and kind of glad his hatchmate was finally getting down to this shit with her. The Makaras shared a look, and stiltwalked away. Kanaya noped out and retreated to her sewing room. Aranea limped away, wincing as she cursed everything and Porrim especially, for never getting the fuck over Kankri and being basically at fault for this whole damn thing, if you thought about it, really.

Gog, this was such bullsh8.

“But Kann- Kankri, I don’t-”

“What did you fucking do, Porrim?! What did you fucking do?! You kept pursuing me, you kept trying to take care of me, kept trying to coddle me and protect me and keep me safe and  _ all it did was make me weak! _ I never asked for your help! I never asked for your affection! I never wanted it! Fuck you, Porrim!”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Fuck what you meant! Fuck all of it! Fuck you especially! I am siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick of your shit! Sick of it! Don’t you- DON’T YOU FUCKING PAP ME YOU BITCH I JUST FUCKING TOLD YOU I’M NOT PALE FOR YOU!”

Porrim recoiled from him, looking hurt. 

He jabbed a finger at her accusingly.  _ “Don’t _ you act so innocent here! If it wasn’t for you maybe I would have learned to feed by myself without fucking up! Fuck you! I nearly  _ killed _ someone! Augh!” He snarled. “You’re not even pale for  _ me _ , you’re pale for the  _ idea _ of me, so fuck off!”

Porrim swallowed. “I- I’m- I’ll be back,” she said, and fled out the front door. 

Kankri stood there, huffing and breathing hard, and then fell back onto the couch from when he had stood in the middle of his rant, whole body reminding him of his many injuries.

_ “Fuck!” _ he yelled. “Karkat, can you come back here so I don’t fucking collapse the next time I stand?!” 

Karkat walked back in, eyebrows attempting to escape to his hairline, and grabbed the med kit from where he’d left it. 

“Is this how you feel  _ all the time?” _ Kankri asked incredulously.

“Yep,” Karkat said.

_ “Hooooooly _ fucking  _ shit, _ how do you live this way?” Kankri asked. 

“Fuck if I know,” Karkat said back, taking another swig of blood and concentrating on Kankri’s back muscles.  _ Maybe because I have a great moirail, _ he didn’t say to his ace-aro hatchmate. “Determination, maybe? Too mean to live, too angry to die and all that.”

“No one has ever fucking said that,” Kankri said. 

“Well I just fucking did, so,” Karkat said dryly.

“Ha!” Kankri cracked out a laugh, covering his wince of pain as muscle tissue fused back together. “So you fucking did indeed!”

“If you ever need tips on dealing with the constant rage I’ve got a list somewhere around here,” Kakat said as he finished bandaging the last of the salt burns.

“It must be similar to an anxiety attack, yes? Taking deep breaths, grounding yourself, perhaps getting some water and meditation?” Kankri asked, reading off a mental list of tips from an advice blog he followed.

Karkat snorted. “Yeah, not even a fucking little. I just direct at something that deserves it, and use it to fuel my determination to fix it. Go try your meditation bullshit if you want, though.”

“I’ll keep your tips in mind,” Kankri said dryly. He still felt the anger that had been awakened by Meenah, burning like the embers of a forest fire.

He had his doubts meditation would help, but you must try all your options, as he always said.

“I suppose I’ll finally have a fucking use for those meditation tapes,” he said.

“If it even gogdamn works,” Karkat said.

“Ugh,” Kankri said, pinching the bridge of his nose, not wanting to think about it anymore. “I have a headache, do you have any Tylenol that I might use?”

“Won’t work,” Karkat said sourly. “Part of the shitty Awakening.  Enjoy the complimentary freaky dream visions, too.  _ And _ they don’t go away.”

“For shit’s sake,” Kankri cursed. “ That's bullshit, this whole thing is bullshit, fuck this Awakening shit.”

“Also, if you ever almost kill someone because you refused to fucking eat again I’m going to kick the shit out of you,” Karkat remarked casually.

“Yes, thank you ever so for that,” Kankri said back, more sarcasm in his voice than in the sentiment. 

“You’re fucking welcome.” Karkat tied off the last bandage, causing Kankri to grit his fangs in pain, and stood, gathering the med supplies and packing it away. “We’re going out tomorrow night to eat, and you better fucking get enough.”

“Thank you,” Kankri said, standing with a hiss of pain, and started to put on his classic red sweater, before he stopped and looked at Karkat. “Do you have-”

Karkat decaptchlogued a plain black t-shirt at him, hitting him in the face, and left to put away the med kit. “There’s a Goodwill around here somewhere if you wanna get rid of it!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Kankri swallowed. Yeah, he… he would have to do that some time. “Thanks,” he said to the empty room.


	26. Chapter 26

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGoghead [TG]

CG: HEY.  
TG: yo dude whats up  
TG: actually texting me first huh knew youd get hooked on the strider charm  
TG: careful karkles dont want to come on too strong  
CG: OH MY GOG, SHUT YOUR BLATHER TRAP FOR ONE SECOND AND LISTEN, OK?  
TG: jeez fine whats got your knickers in a twist kitty  
TG: oh wait is your hatchmate ok  
TG: the kankri guy is something wrong  
TG: shit thats gotta suck dude is he doing alright  
CG: SHUT.  
CG: UP.  
CG: ARE YOU OR YOUR BROTHER DJING FOR LAND OF HEAT AND KRYPTON TONIGHT?  
CG: IT’S PRETTY MUCH THE ONLY CLUB NEARBY MY STUPID HIVE HASN’T GOTTEN US KICKED OUT OF AND EVERYONE IS FUCKING STARVING.  
TG: uh yeah sure  
TG: ill be djing from 9-3 when are yall expecting to get there  
CG: WE’LL BE THERE AROUND 10.  
CG: THANKS, DAVE.  
TG: no prob  
TG: anything for my best bro  
CG: SEE YOU THEN.  
TG: yeah see you then bro

carcinoGeneticist [CG] has ceased pestering turntechGoghead [TG]

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

“Dirk, I’m stealing your shift tomorrow night!” Dave yelled.  
“Why?” Dirk yelled back from his workshop.  
“Shenanigans!” Dave yelled.  
Rose peered into his room with a smug grin, waggling her eyebrows.  
“You keep those under control, you witch!” Dave whisper-yelled at her.  
The waggling did not stop, but she left, radiating smugness, and Dave breathed a sigh of relief.  
“Fine, hell if I care!” Dirk yelled back.  
Yeet! Dave thought to himself.  
Pesterchum dinged on his open laptop.  
Nope.  
Ding!  
Ding!  
Ding!  
Ding!  
Di-  
He closed it.  
Just. No. 

\------------

Dave ran his fingers through his hair, staring at his closet. He was not panicking over what to wear, ok? He was a Strider, Striders didn’t panic, and anyway there was no reason he would even be dressing up, he was just djing at the club like any other night, why would he care what he was wearing anyway-  
“Wear red,” Rose said from behind him, making him jump as he looked to where she was suddenly sitting on his bed. “Bright red, brother dear, and keep your collar low.”  
How, she didn’t even know how to flashstep, he would have noticed her coming in, ok-  
“No, you wouldn’t have, as you were too busy mumbling about how you ‘totally weren’t panicking, ok, Striders don’t panic and who cares what I’m wearing anyway, not this guy’,” she said smugly. “Now come over her and let me put these nails on you so your terrible bitten ones look longer, you outrageous trash fire.”  
“Oh my Gog, you’re so mean to me, Rose,” Dave said, finally pulling out a pair of black skinny jeans and tight red shirt, going to sit by her on the bed and giving his hands over to her tender mercies.  
“Yep,” Rose said, applying glue to his pinky and pressing a long red nail on. “Got it in one, brother dear.”  
“When did you even start saying that?” Dave wrinkled his nose.  
Rose stopped for a second, looking at the false nail she was applying with a confused expression, licked her lips, opened, then closed them again. “…I don’t quite know,” she said eventually.  
“I mean, it feels like you just started saying that one day, and everyone was like ‘oh yeah, that’s a Rose thing, Rose says that all the time’ and I don’t even remember it happening,” he continued on. “It’s kinda weird.”  
“Mm,” Rose said back, trying not to think about it. “Do stop moving around so much, or I’ll mess up on your nails.” She took out her jars of nail gems, and tapped out a black heart and a red spade, sticking them onto each ring finger. Satisfied, she began packing away her nail kit.  
“I like that jade color on you,” Dave said, just noticing her nails. “When did you get it?”  
Rose colored slightly. “Uh,” she said inelegantly, “I’ve always had this, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just never used it before.”  
“I call bullshit,” Dave said. “I’ve seen all your nail polish before, you’re lying. Oh my Gog, you’re blushing!”  
Rose turned away. “I am not,” she said.  
“Oh my Gog, you totally are,” Dave laughed. “It’s because of your girlfriend, isn’t it, you useless lesbian.”  
“She’s not my girlfriend!” Rose said quickly. “I- you’re reading too much into this, I just like the color so I bought it!”  
“So you admit you were lying about already having it,” Dave smirked.  
“Shut up!” Rose fled, like the idiot teen she hadn’t been for 4 years. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Kanaya,” Karkat said, banging on her door, “seriously, there’s no need to dress up, your stupid matesprit isn’t even going to be there-”  
“She’s not my matesprit!” Kanaya said loudly, opening the door hurriedly in a swirl of skirts.  
Karkat only raised his eyebrows, his mouth flattened into a thin line. “We still need to go, though,” he said, “so if you could get a fucking move on, I’d appreciate it a whole fucking lot.”  
“Fuck you,” she said primly, “I am perfectly capable of getting dressed in a timely manner.”  
“We’re fifteen minutes late,” Karkat said flatly.  
“Fuck,” Kanaya said, with great feeling.  
Karkat rolled his eyes with an air of long-sufferance, and left, muttering about “stupid fucking idiot wrigglers who didn’t know their wastechute from their sniff nub” half heartedly.  
“Just get in the damn car already!” he yelled behind him, as she gathered her purse and her lipstick and her chainsaw lipstick and a packet of gum and a box of bandaids and-  
“I swear to god I’m going to leave you here if you don’t hurry up!” Karkat yelled, halfway out the door.  
Kanaya ran over, pouting, and swanned past him through the door and into the back of the pick-up truck, sitting next to a still-shellshocked Porrim and qu8 ir8 Aranea.  
“If I d8n’t 8 soon I am going to cull someone,” she snapped, drained beyond all belief and very 8ngry ab8 it.  
“Shut the fuck up, everyone's hungry, you bitch!” Karkat yelled through the window..  
“Yes, please shut the fuck up,” Kankri said. “I am fully fucking aware that you are drained from that fucking bullshit but the last thing we need is your bitching.”  
Porrim looked at him like he was a stranger.  
Kanaya nudged her until she looked away, and whispered into her ear. “Perhaps you should think a bit harder on what he said, about you pitying the idea of him.”  
“I have been!” she whispered back. “But this is unlike him, even you can see that! He never swore, or did anything that would offend someone on purpose-”  
“True,” Kanaya interrupted, “but he has been through quite a bit, and he has ‘Awoken’, as Karkat calls it, so he is bound to be different now. You can’t expect him to go through such an ordeal and remain the same, Porrim,” she said gently. She patted her hand, and looked over at the Scourge-sprits with an appraising eye.  
“Vriska,” she said, tone very reasonable, “those overalls of yours, the orange ones, they’re getting a bit ragged, would you mind if I-”  
“Oooooooohhhhhhhh no you don’t!” Vriska cried. “I know you, you’re going to ruin them somehow with your ridiculous fashion, Fussy Fangs, there’s no way I’m handing them over!”  
Kanaya pouted. “I merely wish to fix them up a bit, there is no need-”  
“Noooooooope! No way!”  
They descended into arguing, Terezi laughing with Latula, Rufioh asking Kankri about his blog and what he’d do with it now, Mituna listening to rapping “““advice””” from Tavros and Gamzee, and generalized fuckery coming from the front of the truck as Karkat bitched about the other ‘asshole drivers who didn’t know shit about how to not be complete bulgesucking fuckheads to other drivers’ to Kurloz, who looked on with amusement.  
Porrim sat quietly, and thought deeply. 


	27. Chapter 27

They walked into the club, all thirteen scattering through the crowd. Kurloz and Gamzee descended upon the bar, immediately starting to pick fights, and Mituna tripped into girls holding drugged drinks, taking their misfortune. The Serkets and Pyropes went to the card tables in the corner, poker faces in place. Rufioh and Tavros drank in the clear-headedness of the suckers at the bar, helping their Hive members work them up into a Rage. The Maryams made the gaps between crowd smaller and smaller, the crush of the crowd increasing, and picked out their marks for the night. Kankri tapped into his powers, and wove through the crowd towards a mark, adapting his body language to what would attract them easily.

Karkat breathed in the bonds, then cringed as the song faded out, a new beat fading in as _fucking Dave_ yelled, “This one’s going out to my main man Kitkat, right up there in the leather jacket and sexy as fuck red shirt! Go get ‘im, y’all!”

The crowd whooped, a few cooing in delight, others shamelessly checking him out, and Karkat buried his face in his hands, before flipping him off and skirting around the crowd to the bar. He threw a twenty at the bartender and gritted his teeth, looking away. “Just fuck me up,” he said. “Keep the change.”

“Fucking Strider,” they agreed, turning to make it. They looked over as they poured straight vodka into a mixer with chocolate Kahlua and shook it like a shitty maraca, pouring it into a glass between layers of cream and even more fucking vodka.

“It has the most alcohol I can legally serve,” they said proudly, “and the sugar makes it even crazier, so there’s that, too.” They slid it across the bar to him, Karkat taking a gulp and swallowing before he could even taste it.

“Taste like straight poison and a chocolate bar,” he said.

“Thanks,” the bartender said. They rolled their eyes as some drink asshole looking for a fight came up and ordered a goddamn _Bud Light,_ like that even counted as an actual beer, and poured it into a glass from the tap.

“Hey, I wanted that from the can!” the asshole yelled at them. “Stupid asshole-”

Gamzee came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe chill the fuck out, yeah?” he said. “Stop bein’ a dick, huh?”

The guy blinked, and nodded. “Yeah, ok,” he said. “Sorry about that. Here, uh, keep the change.” He tossed a ten on the bar and walked away, beer in hand.

Gamzee looked between Karkat and the bartender, and smiled, glad his moirail had found a mark. He winked at the bartender, mouthed ‘good luck’ and wandered away.

Karkat took another long drink. “Gog, why are all of my friends so embarrassing?” he asked the ceiling, or maybe Gog.

“Aw, they’re just looking out for you,” they said, flashing him a smile. “So tell me about yourself, Kitkat.”

Karkat thumped his head down on the table. “My name is Karkat,” he growled. “Not Kitkat, or Kittycat, or Karkles, or Kitten or- it’s fucking Karkat. K-A-R-K-A-T.”

They huffed a laugh. “Not a fan of nicknames, I take it?” they asked lightly.

 _“*No*,”_ Karkat said with feeling.

“I can respect that,” they said. “You never did answer my question, though, Karkat. I’ve got nothing better to do with my night, spill.”

Karkat groaned. “My family’s in town, all of my cousins wanted to go clubbing, and I’ve got an essay due in three days on a subject I hate,” he said, still face down on the bar.

“Yeesh,” they said sympathetically. “That sucks, man. You know, I know a place we could go for some quiet after my shift-”

“Hey there, Kitty,” Dave said, smirking. “Damn, are my sick beats not hot enough for you? Lounging here barside like some barnacle on a ship, sailing away from the dance floor but you’re still hanging on tight-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, what do you want, Dave?” Karkat snapped. Damn it, he’d been _almost there!_

Dave sat next to him, and the bartender walked away, rolling their eyes.

“The usual, Strider?” they asked disdainfully.

“Hell yeah,” Dave said. “Nectar of the fucking gods, man.”

“I hope you know you disgust me,” they said, half-flinging the glass of whiskey and apple juice at him.

“Cheers, bro, I’ll drink to that,” he said, raising his glass to them.

They left, tending to the other customers, and Karkat pushed Dave.

“They were my mark for tonight!” he said irritatedly. “Now I’ve got to find another one, asshole!”

Dave’s eyebrows shot up, before it clicked for him, and he facepalmed. _“Shiiiiiit,”_ he said. “I’m so sorry, man, that’s like the equivalent of me taking your apple juice from you and winging it right into the bushes, didn’t even drink it but now you can’t either, gotta comb all over town for a store that stocks apple juice and they might not even have any left, you’re thirsty as fuck and all asking if they’ve checked in the back, and then you might have to find another store, hell, might need to go to a whole nother town to check their stores-”

“Do you ever shut your blather trap?!” Karkat asked. “Ugh, I don’t have time for this, I need to find another mark.”

“Nah, stay,” Dave said. “I’ll help you out, bet I can find you some sucker in a hot minute, dude, just chill a moment.”

“You better, I’m fucking starving,” Karkat said. “Human food only tides me over for so long, and I haven’t had proper Prospitan food in gogdamn _sweeps.”_ Karkat had a wistful tone in his voice, giving in, for a moment, to his hivesickness, that persistent tugging at his bloodpusher for his once and future hiveland. He took another sip of his drink, looking away.

“Any-fucking-ways, what was it you pulled me away from my ‘apple juice perusal’ for, dickmunch?” He glared at Dave, ignoring his moment of weakness.

Dave flushed. He honestly hadn’t thought he’d get this far. “Uh,” he says, “I dunno, talk? We’re bros, dude, just have a friendly brotonic hang-out sesh together, as Gog intended when he looked down on us and decided we were going to make a totally tight ultra-platonic broship together. So what’s with you recently?” He floundered. “Uh, not that you’re weird lately or anything, I was just wondering what was going on with you lately, what’s the haps, bro, how’s life and all that, didn’t mean for it to sound like I was accusing you of something or whatever.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Nothing’s ‘up with me’ that you don’t already know about- no, that’s not true, actually.” He grimaced. “My hatchmate finally summoned up the globes to reject Porrim, which stirred up a whole shitload of drama but at least he finally _did it,_ the fucker. Porrim is being a little bitch about it, too, so that’s _absolutely fantastic_ for me until they fucking _leave._ Bastards,” he groused. “They could at least wait until they were out of my fucking hive before they started up with their bullshit.”

“Jeez,” Dave grimaced. “Yeah, I get what you mean about drama. When Dirk figured out that English was a demon-”

Karkat winced. “Ugh, don’t remind me. It wasn’t pretty on _our_ side of the fall out, either. Jake actually liked him, and a depressed Page of Hope?” He shook his head. “I’m _still_ pretty sure it’s his fault that whole neighborhood simultaneously dropped their hobbies for two weeks.”

He gave Dave some major side-eye. “It wasn’t even a _good_ relationship, either, their bonds were all sickly and weird. And there were these strange red…” he trailed off. _“Glitches,_ almost. It wasn’t good.”

Dave nodded. “Man, you don’t have to convince me. That was… a mess.”

“And sometimes the glitches actually _helped!”_ Karkat yelled, gesturing melodramatically. “And sometimes they made it _so much worse_ and-” he slammed his head onto the bar as the bass dropped. _“Just looking at those two gave me a headache…”_ he mumbled.

“Yikes,” Dave said.

“Yikes is fucking right,” Karkat said, sitting up properly. “Not even kidding here, I will actually rip out my eyeballs if I have to see those two together again. Rip. Them. _Out.”_

“Jeez, dude,” Dave said. “That’s fuckin’ graphic, but ok.”

“It’s not like I couldn’t just get Aranea to fix it  or something,” Karkat groused.

Dave let out a quiet, “huh,” and nodded, filing that away for later. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Still seems like a pain to do, though, so instead let’s just not have them get back together.”

“Finally, a good idea, for once in your miserable life.”

They started talking in earnest, conversation flowing easily as they swapped stories about friends and school. As the night came to an end, Karkat finished off his drink, and began looking over his prospects. It was less than optimal.

Yeah, scratch that, it was fucking dismal.

“Urg,” he said, “I’m going to fucking starve, unless you manage to pull a miracle out of your ass, Strider.”

Dave looked around, sucking in through his teeth. The club was… practically empty, by this point, and when he checked his watch, it was just around closing time. “Well, shit,” he said, “I guess I kinda screwed your chances, huh, my bad. I, uh, I. Nah. Um, sorry, dude.”

Karkat closed his eyes. Took a deep breath in. “My whole fucking Hive _and_ my hatchmate’s Hive have already eaten. We need to fucking leave. So.” He looked at Dave. “You better find me someone _fast,_ or I’ll flip my gogdamn shit.”

 _“Holy shiiiiiiit, can’t believe I’m doing this but,”_ Dave mumbled. This went against, like, _allllllll_ of his hunter instincts, everything Bro and Auntie Rox had taught him, but, like, fuck them, right, assholes, and didn’t he kinda owe the guy already, they hadn’t met on the best of terms and he’d been stalking him for weeks and then attacked him and then totally barged into his home uninvited too like why did he even want to talk to him at all he was practically a gogdamn saint for putting up with Dave’s shit by now and holy fuck wasn’t that ironic, demon for sainthood and-

A’ight let’s get back on track here.

“Annnnnnnd yep, there they go, the last fucker in the place. Thank you, Dave, for keeping me from my gogdamn dinner, you asshole, I’m fucking leaving-”

“I, uh,” Dave swallowed. “You could just ask _me,_ dude, as like, a bro-favor. If you wanted.”

Karkat blinked dubiously at him. “It only works if the other person is into it, Dave, otherwise the bond won’t _work.”_

Yep, this was it for him, this was where he died, tragically taken in the prime of his life, oh the cause of death doc yeah it was shame he just got so embarrassed he keeled the fuck over such a shame he was too young to die.

“I mean, we’re bros, dude, can’t that work? Like, if it has to be the sexy kind of interest, I get it, but-”

Karkat grabbed his arm and dragged him to a corner out of sight and away from security cameras. “I’m doing this _only_ in the hopes that it’ll get you to shut up, and _nothing_ else, you hear?” he snarled, which really should have made Dave more scared than it did.

“Neat,” Dave said. Gog, _neat,_ he had to sound like an idiot, holy shit-

“This won’t hurt,” Karkat said, pushing Dave against the wall with the ease of old practice and pulling down his collar. “Much.”

“Not comforting, Kit- ow-!” Unsurprisingly, being bitten in the fucking neck _wasn’t exactly pleasant,_ and having his blood sucked out of the newly made hugeass hole in it wasn’t a fucking picnic _either._ Gog, no wonder they got banned from clubs so often- it’s not exactly a real crowd-grabber to be known for a getting regular visits from a pack of assholes who cheated at pool and cards and went around biting people like vampire wannabes.

After somewhere in the ballpark of ¾ of a pint, the bite healed over with nothing except a faint, distinctly hickey-shaped bruise, and Karkat pulled off, eyebags nearly completely gone, the residual exhaustion that seemed to hang over him constantly suddenly absent.

“Holy _shit,_ dude, you were that far gone?!” was Dave’s first reaction, staring incredulously at him.

“Hm?” Karkat said, blinking. “Oh- oh yeah. Yeah, normally I can’t take that much before people start to notice, and I have to make really small nicks instead of just biting down. Pain in the gogdamn ass, is what it is.” He blinked languidly again, less like someone who’d finally got a shot of espresso and more like someone just waking up from a long nap. Well rested, but not quite awake yet.

Then his eyebrows furrowed. “Aw, fuck- Dave, can I get a ride hive? Same place as last time, the others already left, I told them I was gonna be a while, and I’m only just fucking now realizing that leaves me with no car.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dave said. “Lemme clock out and grab my keys, and we can go.”

Karkat didn’t have to wait long, and they walked out together to Dave’s car, which was, unexpectedly, pretty clean. Karkat buckled into the passenger’s seat, and the ride was quiet, Dave driving quietly and Karkat half-dozing as they drove to his hive, on the outskirts of the city.

“Hey,” Dave nudged Karkat. “Hey, we’re at your house, dude. Come on, gotta get you home before curfew and all that. Dude. Bro. Get up.” He poked Karkat on the cheek, startling him awake.

Karkat snapped half-heartedly at him, but roused himself enough to unbuckle and get out of the car, waving to Dave as he walked back to his hive and unlocked the door, easing it closed with a last wave.

The lights clicked on a few moments afterwards, and Dave chuckled a little as he realized Karkat’s cuddles-and-kisses-only boyfriend had stayed up for him. Sweet. Ridiculously so, even, just like those movies Karkat had mentioned a while back in one of their pester-chats.

Dave wasn’t… jealous, or anything. Striders didn’t get jealous, don’t be ridiculous, and what was there to be jealous of, even, it’s not like he liked h-

Dave backed out of the driveway and drove home. He had to be tired or something. Yeah. That was it.

Tired.


	28. Chapter 28

“Rooooooooose,” Dave whined.

“Hmm?” She continued knitting, unperturbed by the sudden intrusion of her room.

“Roooooooooooooose,” he whined again. “Rose.  _ Rose. _ Rose Rose Rose Rose Rose Rose Ro-”

“Yes, Dave?”

“Help me.”

“Help you with what?”

Dave sat up from where he was draped over the edge of her bed head-first, blood rushing back down from his face, pouting. “You  _ know _ what, Rose. Help me already.”

She set down her knitting with a bemused look on her face. “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know what you need help with?”

Dave flopped back down, head banging against the floor painfully. “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” he groaned. 

“Why what, brother dear? Why do you have a  _ very _ specific taste for broad, muscular, curly-black-haired, highly expressive, and rather loud people that just so happen to be demonic in nature?” she said, smirking.

“Alright,  _ listen here,  _ Lalonde,” Dave said, rising up again to sit more normally, cross-legged on her comforter.

“Oh, I’m listening, brother dear,” she said.  _ “Very _ attentively, might I add.”

“Fuck you,” he said.

She clapped. “Excellent rebuttal.” 

Dave gave her a flat look. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve gotten through our snark gambit for the day,  _ please help me now.” _

“Dave, I’m not sure if you know this,” Rose said dryly, “but I am not at all good at relationships. Even a little. I am flattered that you went to me for advice, but I cannot help in any constructive way.” 

“But who  _ else _ can I talk to about this?” he asked. “All the other hunters in town are screwed up because of freaky clown majjyks, and anyone else would think I was crazy if I started talking about demons and other crazy ass shit.  _ Who else, Rose?” _

“Roxy,” she said, without missing a beat. “I am  _ terrible _ at building up the nerve to speak to attractive girls, in case you missed those years of my childhood wherein it took me two full years to ask a girl out on a date, who turned out to be  _ straight, _ and asking Dirk would be completely disastrous. By process of elimination, that leaves Roxy, who just so happens to be the only one out of us who has any interpersonal skills to speak of that aren’t couched behind twelve layers of facades.” She went back to knitting. “Off you go, Dave. As the Canadians say: pitter patter.” 

“You literally stole that from a web series,” Dave said.

“Maybe so. Now vacate my room, or I’ll turn my needlekind on you.”

“Jeez, don’t have to tell me twice, you witch,” Dave muttered, walking out. Time to try the other Lalonde, he guessed.

  
  


\---------------------------

  
  


“Roxy, stop laughing at me!” Dave threw his hands up in the air, sick of this bullshit.

Roxy tried to get herself under control, subsiding into giggles, before it flared up again, snorting before finally trailing off. “Oh my  _ Gog, _ Davey, you think we haven’t allllll noticed your huge-ass crush on Nubs McShouts?” she asked. “It was so obvious! You were  _ totes _ perving on him when we went over that first time, I swear I haven’t seen you that red since middle school and you tried to ask out that kid in your music class! An’ that was  _ realllllly _ fuckin’ red!” 

“We swore we wouldn’t talk about that!”

“Nope, I think that was just you, Davey!” she laughed. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Rox, it’s was implied! You don’t talk about embarrassin’ shit like that again after the the fact, you let it fade into faint memory and never speak of it again!!” Dave pinched the bridge of his nose. “Damn it, Rox, I came here for advice, not to get made fun of by my own damn sister!”

She grinned, but dropped it, focusing on the matter at hand. “So what do you want my help with, Davey?” she asked. 

“How do you ask people out, even?” Dave asked. “How do you do ittttttttt. Teach me your ways, Rox. Pls.” 

“Alright,” she said, “listen up, Davey. The very first step isssssssssssss…” she paused, stretching out the moment. 

“Well?!” Dave asked.

“You gotta ask ‘em!” she cried out. “That’s it! You jus’ gotta suck it up and ask ‘em if they wanna go on a date.” 

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Dave groaned. “Y’all are all fuckin’ useless, you know that, right?”

Roxy just shot him double finger guns and grinned.


	29. Chapter 29

_ Hooooooooly  _ fuck, was it *so* much quieter without Kankri’s Hive in the house.

“Bye, Kankri!!!” Karkat waved at them, as they backed out of the driveway. “Please fucking try not to come back soon!”

“I’d rather fucking die!” Kankri yelled back out of the passenger’s seat window, and waved his goodbye.

Rufioh put in a CD, and the opening from Puella Madoka Magica started blasting as they drove away. 

Karkat slammed the door closed in satisfaction. “Fucking finally!” he yelled, and Vriska cheered.

“Good riddance to irritating hatchmates!” She said, sipping her scalding leaf juice without background noise for the first time in  _ weeks _ . 

It had never tasted so good.

“Personally, I think, we should pull out, Jaws, and marathon that shit,” Tavros said.

“Teeth! Teeth! Teeth!” Terezi yelled.

“Blood! Blood! Blood!” Vriska began chanting.

“I’m going to  _ fucking _ throw a gogdamn book at you if you don’t shut up!!!” Karkat yelled. “Fuck, I missed threats of gratuitous violence,” he sighed. “Tavros, fire them the fuck up, we’re watching the whole damn series! If anyone wants another movie you can  _ fuck off, _ and by fuck off I mean fuck off right back here and sit your ass down because it’s movie night, motherfuckers!”

**_“Yeah!!!”_ ** his Hive yelled.

Next door, in a whole-ass different house, their neighbors groaned, knowing they wouldn’t be able to sleep that night.

  
  


\----

  
  


Dave straightened his collar as he fidgeted on the doorstep, about to knock again, just as a bleary-eyed, clearly just-woken-up Tavros opened the door. 

This was really fucking weird, as it was 2:30 p.m on a Thursday.

“Wh’t,” Tavros grumbled.

“Is, uh, Karkat here?” Dave asked.

“Ev’ry’ne’s, ‘sleep,” Tavros said. “Com’, b’ck t’m’rrow.” He closed the door in Dave’s face, a fuck-ton of locks clicking shut.

Welp. 

  
  


\----

  
  


 

turntechGodhead [TG]   began pestering  tentacleTherapist [TT]

 

TG: rose help

TG: rose

TG: rose 

TG: roseanne lalonde strider

 

tentacleTherapist is an active chum!

 

TT: That’s not my name, Dave.

TG: but you responded to it

TG: ‘,B /

TT: Why did you contact me so soon into your flirt-quest, Dave?

TG: nice subject change lalonde

TG: also little bighorn told me to come back tomorrow and shut the door in my face

TG: help

TT: Dave, did it ever occur to you to simply go back tomorrow?

TG: well obviously lalonde 

TG: but what do i do now

TT: Well, perhaps you should start by getting off their doorstep.

TT: Then, you might even try the simple task of ‘coming home’.

TG: yeah yeah i get it

TG: im getting the car now simmer down

TT: Safe travels, brother.

  
  


\----

  
  


“Rox, your advice ain’t shit!” Dave yelled.

Roxy squawked in indignation from her room, and rushed down to the living room. “How DARE you slander my good name?!?” she yelled melodramatically.

“I fucking tried asking him and he’s apparently asleep! He didn’t even come to the door, Little Bighorn did!” Dave yelled back.

“How’s that my fault? Let the guy sleep, Davey!” Roxy put her hands on her hips, pursing hot pink-painted lips at him.

“That’s not the point! The point is your advice didn’t work! Gogdamn!” 

“Can y’all shut up, I’m working on something!” Dirk yelled from his workshop.

“I’m just going to text him, fuck it,” Dave said. 

“That’s not very romantic,” Rose said. 

“Oh, yes, because you’re the resident expert on romance. Remind me, how long did it take you to ask out your first crush?” Dave shot back.

“Shut up,” Rose said.

  
  


\----

  
  


turntechGodhead [TG]   began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

 

TG: hey

TG: so

TG: you free on friday

TG: just wondering

CG: WHY?

TG: i was wondering if 

 

Dave let out a quiet scream.

 

CG: IF?

TG: you wanted to go out

TG: on like

TG: a bro hang out

 

What the fuck?

 

TG: you and me

 

What the  _ fuck? _

 

TG: getting our bro on

 

_ What the fuck?  _

 

TG: friendly style

 

IDIOT.

 

TG: a couple of cool dudes just being chill

 

Duh derp dup bluh duppity duh durr bluh derpity DUP.

 

TG: you know

 

STUPID STUPID STUPID.

 

TG: like bros

 

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK what the FUCK Dave?!?!?

 

CG: YEAH, SOUNDS COOL. WHAT TIME?

CG: I’VE GOT CLASS FROM 8:30 TO 12, BUT AFTER THAT I’M FREE.

 

_ AUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH. _

 

TG: sounds cool

 

Idiotidiotidiot _ idiotidiotidiot! _

 

TG: i know this hella place for lunch

 

Stupid stupid  _ dumb _ .

 

CG: COOL. I’LL MEET YOU AT YOUR HIVE, THEN?

TG: sounds great dude

TG: see you then

Dave rolled over on his bed and screamed into his pillow.

Rose, knitting in the living room, sighed.

  
  


\----

  
  


“Humans are so fucking weird,” Karkat said, looking down at his phone.

Kanaya nodded her agreement.


End file.
